As an educator I may be a bit biased, but I think the focus on education that we see in Hizmet, that we see in Gulen and his teachings and his being, that focus on education which is critical to the work of Hizmet is itself the most critical work that can be done in this age.
Seval Yıldırım, a professor of law at Whittier Law School, said in a statement to Today’s Zaman on Wednesday that for the US to extradite Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen without a formal case against him would be an infringement of US law.
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has strongly criticized abusive language and remarks within pro-government circles insulting members of the Hizmet movement, saying this kind of behavior is hypocritical and is being employed to cover up their own sins.
The leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, rightly called it “a coup against democracy” when Zaman Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı and STV network executive Hidayet Karaca, together with a number of screenwriters and television producers, were detained on Dec. 14 on the incredible charges of founding or belonging to “an armed terrorist organization aiming to seize the sovereignty of the state.”
It is a well-known fact that then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had sent Bülent Arınç to Mr. Fethullah Gülen to give him the message, “We are ready to do anything you want us to do,” and that he had called on Mr. Gülen to return to the country to “put an end to homesickness” in the witness of tens of thousands of spectators in a stadium.
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said he believes many people, including he himself, would like to be in the shoes of Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı and Samanyolu Broadcasting Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca, who were detained in a police operation on Sunday, implying that it is an honor for the journalists to be in custody under Turkey’s current circumstances.
Insanity ripples through the country, the media and the people. If graft or corruption is the prevailing form of life spreading from the state to society, and if this form of life is supported by people, then we are hitting the bottom day by day. A prosecutor can say “We can detain 500 thousand people if necessary” and still hold his post as if he said quite an ordinary thing. Whereas in Europe mental health of such a prosecutor would be called into question and most probably examined.