Keyword: Turkey
President Gül dismisses calls to help tackle political turmoil
During a press conference held on Monday, the GYV, whose honorary chairman is Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, stated that a hate crime is being carried out against the Hizmet movement in Turkey and called on President Gül to take the initiative to investigate the executive branch’s recent attempts to render the judiciary dysfunctional.
The Gülen Movement and Turkish Soft Power*
The Gülen approach to education aptly demonstrates the group’s global strategy—Gülen movement schools are open to both Turkish migrants and citizens of host countries, and they avoid advancing a religious agenda. These schools aim to help Turkish migrants succeed in their host societies without losing sight of their Turkish roots, and at the same time they promote social unity by serving the needs of migrants and local students alike. The success of Gülen movement schools stems both from the success of the students (and the satisfaction of the parents) and from the prestige and goodwill they enjoy among local and political authorities for promoting integration and acting as a social mediator.
Should Hizmet establish a political party?
If the Hizmet movement had believed that services to Turkey can best be provided through politics, it would have done so from the beginning. Civil society has a special place in democracies. One can also serve the country by rejecting democratic pressures and upholding rule of law and individual freedoms.
CSOs slam ongoing black propaganda against Hizmet movement
The Law and Democracy Platform, which includes 60 CSOs in İzmir province, held a press conference to protest the polarizing language used by government officials. The representative of the platform, Ömer Mustafa Aytekin, said there have been very unpleasant developments that risk democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
Latest practices of AK Party gov’t raise fears of ‘one-party state’
İstanbul branch chairman, Aziz Babuşcu, who said the removal of Hizmet movement sympathizers from state institutions started long before the corruption scandal broke on Dec. 17 of last year. Babuşcu’s remarks drew condemnations, with many accusing the AK Party of removing public servants that the party dislikes from duty and filling state institutions with party supporters.
Gov’t keeps purging, dozens of police officials across Turkey have been removed
The government’s massive purge of members of the police and judiciary following the eruption of a corruption and bribery scandal continued across the country on Tuesday, with dozens more police officials being removed from their posts.
Can Erdoğan finish off the Gülen movement?
In other words, this is not a power struggle but a one-sided attack by an increasingly authoritarian leader on a civil society movement critical of the way government rules the nation.
In this asymmetrical fight, the Hizmet movement has nothing to lose. It is composed of individuals who are dedicated to doing something that they believe is for the good of humanity.
Prime minister’s inconsistencies raise eyebrows
Distortions of the truth and outright lies by Erdoğan regarding the economy, the Gezi protests, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), prosecutors and investigations by prosecutors, the graft investigation and the Hizmet movement are some of what is making Erdoğan’s rhetoric questionable.
Securitizing the Hizmet / Gulen movement
Turkey’s most influential and widely respected civil society organisation, the Hizmet movement, is under continual attack by PM Erdoğan who accuses it of seeking to establish a “parallel state”. Such rhetoric and ‘securitization’ may destroy the democratic fabric of Turkish society.
Islamic scholar Gülen files libel case against PM Erdoğan
Gülen’s lawyer Nurullah Albayrak said on Monday that Erdoğan moved beyond borders of freedom of expression and used excessively harsh insults against the Islamic scholar. Gülen is demanding TL 100,000 in compensation for the allegedly denigrating remarks.
Turkey’s once-worldly aims falter, even close allies concerned
Power appears to have gone to the prime minister’s head. Angling to become president in order to extend his rule, Erdogan is foolishly profiling and purging former friends in the Hizmet movement, recently firing hundreds of government employees who are allegedly (no one knows for sure as there’s no evidence) sympathetic to the movement’s founder, Fethullah Gulen
State Islam versus civic Islam
Using the Hizmet movement, AK party wants to create a common enemy that would be recognized as such by different social groups. It demonizes the movement and makes it a target of the social opposition. But all these tricks and methods do not eliminate one basic truth. There is an unusual experience in Turkey. There is an ongoing war between “state Islam” and “civic Islam.”
AK Party İstanbul head: Purge in state institutions began long before
Maintaining that the reassignment of thousands of people in the police force and dozens in the judiciary since the breaking of the corruption probe, in which four former ministers of the AK Party have also been implicated, should not be considered routine reassignments, Babuşcu said
Censored by theft: Man caught stealing copies of Zaman daily
In the video footage, the young man is seen stealing three Zaman newspapers placed in the mail boxes of an apartment building. When asked by the subscriber who was filming why he was stealing the newspapers, the thief said his father was the AK Party’s Beylikdüzü provincial chairman and that his father had initiated the campaign against Zaman because it is defaming the party.
