
FDP leader Christian Lindner said he saw parallels between Erdogan’s behavior and the aftermath of the Reichstag fire in 1933 portrayed by the Nazis as a Communist plot against the government and used by Adolf Hitler to justify massively curtailing civil liberties. “We are experiencing a coup d’etat from above like in 1933 after the Reichstag fire. He is building an authoritarian regime tailored solely to himself,” Lindner said.

Now that Erdogan has cleared away all of his rivals from within, he has aggressively demanded that the U.S. extradite his only remaining serious rival – Fethullah Gulen. It would be unconscionable and immoral for the U.S. to comply with the wishes of a power hungry and merciless dictator. When the smoke has finally cleared we may discover that Erdogan himself has engineered the coup as an excuse for a final crackdown on the opposition and to solidify his autocratic rule.

There is something deeply disturbing about the direction in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are taking Turkey. Writing in this newspaper last week, John Lyons compared the sweeping purges to McCarthyism in the US in the 1950s. That was altogether the wrong analogy.

President Erdogan has also asked the Government of Nigeria to close down all Turkish schools in Nigeria allegedly because Fetullah Gulen was the main architect of the failed coup in Turkey. Is this request in Nigeria’s national interest? In which way is the Turkish failed coup likely to impact on Nigeria’s national security? How important is Nigeria-Turkish relations in the country’s overall global relations?

Turkish teacher who was denied medical aid after harsh treatment, dies under custody. Gokhan Acikkolu was a teacher of history. As many people, he was detained on charge of being Gulen Fallower on July 23,2016. He died under police custody. He died without even knowing what he was accused of.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, even before the coup occurred, has been seen as a dictator who has constantly sought to crackdown on his opponents, and consolidate his power within the country. Turkey has one of the worst freedoms of expression record globally, with tons of journalists imprisoned for criticizing the Turkish Government.

The official announcement did not provide any details about the visit, but Nazarbayev is expected to smooth over any disagreements between the two Turkic countries following the failed coup. The Kazakh-Turkish schools employ 1,124 teachers, of whom 1,030 are Kazakh citizens (91.7%) and 94 are Turkish citizens (8.3%).” Kazakhstan also has the Suleyman Demirel University, opened in Almaty in 1996.

Officials aren’t convinced by evidence against Fethullah Gulen, Pennsylvania-based imam who Turkey says masterminded the failed putsch. U.S. officials don’t expect to extradite an imam Turkey blames for masterminding a failed coup because they aren’t convinced by the evidence Ankara has presented so far and are troubled by threatening public statements from Turkish officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.

We don’t know a lot. But what we do know should cause us to ask our elected officials to look carefully at any request for extradition for Fethullah Gulen. We don’t know everything, but we know that the post-coup crackdown has included public appeals “to be protected from the evil things of educated people.” Nearly 60,000 have been detained. Some 1,600 university academic deans have been relieved of their positions.

The issuance of an arrest warrant from a Turkish court changes nothing about my status or my views. I have repeatedly condemned the coup attempt in Turkey and denied any knowledge or involvement. It is well-documented the Turkish court system is without judicial independence, so this warrant is yet another example of President Erdogan’s drive authoritarianism and away from democracy.

From his self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, Gulen has disavowed any association with the coup attempt. “My philosophy — inclusive and pluralist Islam, dedicated to service to human beings from every faith — is antithetical to armed rebellion,” Gulen wrote for The New York Times.

LOUISE CALLAGHAN To plan a speedy political exile from Turkey today, you need two things: a world map and the Wikipedia page on “visa entry requirements for Turkish citizens.” If you get out a highlighter and start cross-referencing the two, you’ll quickly see the bottom half of the map is more accessible than the top. […]

The Turks need to be reminded that Mr. Gulen has a legal right to be in the United States, and that the Justice Department would have to go through a rigorous process before deciding whether he could be handed over, especially to a country where due process is increasingly unlikely and torture is reportedly used against detainees.