Keyword: Hizmet (Gulen) movement
To save itself, Turkish govt stabs hard-won democracy
“I don’t want to say that – but this is an executive coup over judiciary,” lawmaker Bal said. He noted that blaming the graft scandal on a “parallel state” – a phrase Erdogan often employs to describe his alleged opponents within the state – significantly damages Turkey’s reputation.
Tension at home hits Turkey’s brand overseas
ESİDEF President Mustafa Özkara said: “Top government officials, who during the Turkish Olympiads only six months ago called the Hizmet movement the ‘peace movement of the century,’ now define the same movement as a ‘parallel structure,’ a ‘gang,’ a ‘criminal organization’ and even Hashashins.
An early prediction about the next elections
Turkey’s future will be determined in the next election. If the AKP government is not able to gain more than 38 percent of the total votes this time, it will directly affect the future of Turkish politics. Erdoğan cannot be the next president, for instance.
Former US envoys to Ankara say Erdoğan doing great harm to democracy
“Whatever his achievements over the past decade, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is destroying his country’s parlous democracy. That is a profound problem for Turks and Turkey’s Western allies. Staying silent, out of fear that speaking out would harm some short-term interests, risks Turkey’s longer-term stability.”
Islamist vs. Islamic
The followers of Gülen have opted to vote for and support various center parties freely. Moreover, their support has never amounted to partisanship. Rather, they have tended to back specific policies and the political parties that placed greater emphasis on democratization, demilitarization, transparency, accountability, fundamental rights and freedoms and economic stability.
Lambsdorff: PM’s explanations on corruption cases were not convincing
The vice-chairman of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, who represented his group in the meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday, said he was not convinced by the arguments put forward by the Turkish prime minister to explain the corruption cases which erupted on Dec. 17 and the unfolding events afterwards.
Gülen’s lawyer warns about possible doctored tapes
Lawyer Nurullah Albayrak in a written statement referred to lies and defamation about Gülen in the media which have become widespread and said Gülen’s phone calls have been illegally wiretapped. “These calls are reported in the media without taking any ethical principles into consideration,” he said, adding that it is very likely there will be edited phone calls as part of a black propaganda campaign against Gülen.
UN and Turkish charity provide 17,000 Syrian refugees with financial aid
Up to 17,000 Syrian refugees living in difficult conditions, some of them begging on the streets, outside of camps established in Turkey for Syrians will be able to benefit for two months from the project Kimse Yok Mu is conducting in cooperation with the UNHCR.
PM Erdoğan has one tone for Brussels, another for Turkey
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan shifted his rhetoric on his official visit to Brussels, dropping talk of a “parallel state” that is trying to unseat him when addressing European Union officials and foreign journalists — although he continued his defamation campaign against the Hizmet movement in meetings where he addressed Turkish audiences.
CSOs across Turkey slam campaign under way to discredit Hizmet movement
Representatives of civil society organizations across Turkey issued press releases on Wednesday to condemn a defamation campaign targeting the Hizmet movement, a volunteer-based grassroots movement particularly working in the field of education around the world while aiming to spread interfaith dialogue inspired by Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Conceptual contradictions when it comes to rhetoric about ‘parallel state’
.In the wake of the Dec. 17 corruption operations that took place in Turkey, the government removed and changed such an extraordinarily high number of people from their positions in the police force, the justice system and the national education structure that these changes certainly would not have been possible in a state of law. An attempt was made to see these changes happen within the framework of heavy propaganda about the concept of the existence of a “parallel state.”
