Dismayed, if not surprised, by the unabated smear campaign against distinguished Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, the scholar’s relatives have expressed their disappointment and anxiety over the endless accusations and slander against Gülen.
To prove whether the Gülen movement has a parallel structure , one has to establish that the investigations and wiretappings were not conducted within the scope of a legal investigation. If that is proven, one has to demonstrate that the police and prosecutors in charge of the investigations were receiving instructions not from the state but from sources within the movement. Both of these claims have to be proven with evidence.
Nobody believes that the mass culling and reassignment of up to 10,000 public officials (most from the police department and the judiciary and many of whom are mid-level and senior personnel) so far by embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has anything to do with what the government purports is a fight against a “parallel structure,” a veiled reference to members of the Hizmet movement inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Arguments and discriminatory rhetoric used by the prime minister against the Hizmet movement spoil the emotional well-being of our people; undermine social peace and prepare the groundwork for violence by sowing the seeds of hatred in society, the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) said in a forceful statement .
Prime Minister marketed the historic graft investigation as a “coup against the government” and he targeted the Hizmet movement by voicing this claim first in the pro-government media outlets and then in the election rallies along with a host of unthinkable lies and slanders.
Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Dumanlı has described slanderous remarks used by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and some members of the Justice and Development Party government against the Hizmet movement as highly reminiscent of insults directed at the country’s conservative-minded citizens during the Feb. 28, 1997 “postmodern coup” period.
Arguments and discriminatory rhetoric used by the prime minister against the Hizmet movement spoil the emotional well-being of our people; undermine social peace and prepare the groundwork for violence by sowing the seeds of hatred in society, the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) said in a forceful statement published on its website on Thursday.
I am not Iranian, how can I be like Khomeini? Nor have I ever had the pretensions that Khomeini had. I’m the child of my own country. If one day I return to Turkey, I will be the same as I’ve always been,” the U.S.-based Gülen said in a video-recorded message on March 5.