Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has suspended 20 TV shows of the Samanyolu Haber TV news channel, its Editor in Chief Metin Yıkar announced via his Twitter account on Saturday. The RTÜK penalty came days after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to finish off the Hizmet Movement and its affiliates, including the Samanyolu Haber TV.
Gold firm Koza Altın’s operations at a mine in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir have been suspended by the governorship, two months after the halting of another mine belonging to company known to have close ties with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul approved on Wednesday a law closing private preparatory schools, many of which are a source of income and influence for an Islamic cleric accused by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of seeking to topple him.
The 32nd Abant International Forum, in line with the recommendations of the 29th Forum with the theme “Africa: Between Experience and Inspiration” was convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 08-09 March 2014 to discuss the topic “Freedom of Speech and Respect for the Sacred”.
A businessman summarized it like this: “In the past, it was very important in the business community to have a meeting with Fethullah Gülen. Those going to the United States would try to get an appointment; yet today, different meanings are being attributed to these meetings. Those who in the past made sure to have these meetings publicly are now praying they do not come to the surface.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, defining it as a parallel state, gravely insults the Hizmet movement and Fethullah Gülen. It is our right to expect some decency in his style given that he is the prime minister of all in this country. We feel sorry because this attitude is not embracive, this attitude is not fair and this attitude is not legal.
Two Turkish businessmen from the Central Anatolian city of Konya have threatened a business confederation by telling it to “cut ties” with Turkey’s largest volunteer-based grassroots movement, the Hizmet movement, or be placed on a government blacklist of entrepreneurs affiliated with the movement, the head of the business confederation has said.
In the last three years the AK Party established their new “center” with the new statism away from the periphery. The Hizmet movement viewed this change as a new centralization and thus a new statism and tutelage with new political and capitalist actors. Due to this change in attitude, the Hizmet movement broke faith with Erdoğan and the AK Party.
The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has issued a warning over news program “Derin Bakış” (Deep Glance), which is broadcast on Samanyolu News TV, on the grounds that the program is “biased,” only a week after it penalized Bugün TV for the same reason.
The state can no longer control the estate in its entirety. As a matter of fact, society and politics cannot be perceived as an “estate.” Thus, civil forces and communities want to be influential over decision-making mechanisms related to political processes and public polices, not over the state.
Erdogan also accused the movement of being behind several recent audio recordings posted on various social media networks that disclosed several conversations allegedly between himself and his son Bilal Erdoğan discussing how to get rid of large sums of money cached in their homes and those of their relatives.
Once Erdogan declares the Gülen movement as national security threat, he will try to confiscate all schools, dormitories, foundations, institutions and universities associated with the Gülen movement and hand them over to his supporters to run a giant institution of networks to create “religious generations.”