“I have always been against coups, and I cursed them,” he said. “I would curse people who resort to coups against democracy, liberty, republic.” Gulen said returning to Turkey would only complicate matters. Asked if he had a message for Erdogan, Gulen said: “I only pray that he would not go to the presence of God with all these sins he committed.”
Mr. Erdogan’s witch-hunt in Turkey accelerated with the globalization of the Hizmet movement. When he closed the doors to activities such as language and culture festivals, other countries welcomed them. When Mr. Erdogan urged Turkish ambassadors to lobby their respective foreign governments to help close down schools started by Hizmet participants, those governments refused to go along.
The purge hurries Turkey on its way to what was already looking increasingly inevitable as its unfortunate destination: an illiberal executive presidency with a fading democratic lustre and Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruling more or less unchecked and unrivalled until he dies or steps down.
Okumus said he has lots of questions about the origin of the coup, and is suspicious about Erdogan’s motives to blame Gulen. He said the coup has created a kind of with-us-or-against-us mentality in Turkey, one that will ultimately hurt the country and its relations with the United States. Turkish officials have already fired tens of thousands of teachers, university deans and others they say have ties to the failed coup plot.
It disturbed me to see your newspaper uncritically using the term ‘Fetö’ – standing for the so-called ‘Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation’, which is a rather bizarre creation of the paranoid Erdoğan propaganda machine. It is true that, with most dissenting voices silenced and most of the opposition press closed, Erdoğan’s propaganda now reigns supreme in Turkey.
Mr. Abudulahi, a professor, added that the schools were playing very significant role in the development of education in Nigeria and should not be closed. He said that the school was one of the most secured in the country, adding that even in the hit of Boko Haram activities in the North ast, it remained open in Yobe. He further added that so long as the NTIC had operated within the laws of Nigeria, it should be allowed to remain in operation.
YeniSafak News, a pro-government Turkish newspaper: “Turkish envoy seeks closure of Gulen schools in Nigeria” (July 29). But are they really Gulen schools? Interestingly, some Nigerian newspapers reported that Turkey has “ordered” the Nigerian Government to close down some schools! Can an Ambassador or any country give orders to the Nigerian government?
In Kenya, where Gulen’s Omeriye Foundation has grown from its first school in 1998 in the vast Nairobi slum of Kibera to a nationwide network of academies, the government has resisted pressure to close them down. Turkish officials have requested Kenya to shut down the Gulenist schools on a number of occasions before the attempted coup.
Dr Nawab says: “What is more accurate is to describe it as a community of people who, perhaps, subscribe to the ideas of Fethullah Gulen. “They put in a lot of effort to integrate within Singapore society. Many of them are married to Singaporeans and are naturalised citizens. I am talking about Turks who would take you to durian parties.”
I hope that those who set their hearts on a cause will not loosen their hands about working on the world solidarity and universal human values, and they will continue on their way. I hope they do not get shaken by such storms, with Allah’s permission and help. Just like all the things happened until today had passed and became history, these latest incidents will pass and become history, with Allah’s permission.
State Secretary Pramono Anung acknowledged Ankara’s statement on the affiliation of schools in Indonesia with the coup masterminds, but also said there was never any formal request from Turkey to shut down the school. Pramono indicated the government’s concern about Turkey interfering in domestic affairs.
Critics claim that this failed coup attempt was simply a pretext to legitimize arbitrary authoritarian practices, eliminate all the dissent while filling the state apparatus with staunch supporters, and start an ethnic cleansing against sympathizers of the Gulen movement and Alawites.
Sherko Hama Amin, a member of the Kurdistan Parliament’s Education Committee, told NRT that schools should not be shut down over political reasons, especially a political issue outside the region. The Turkish government has previously, even before the July 15 military coup attempt, called on the KRG to close schools connected to the Gulen movement in the region.
Jason Hanna and Tim Hume Captured military officers raped by police, hundreds of soldiers beaten, some detainees denied food and water and access to lawyers for days. These are the grim conditions that many of the thousands who were arrested in Turkey face in the aftermath of a recent failed coup, witnesses tell Amnesty International. […]