
Nurullah Albayrak, the lawyer of prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has criticized the blocking of herkul.org, a website that regularly broadcasts speeches by Gülen, saying views that are different from the state ideology are considered a crime in Turkey today.

Attorneys for a reclusive Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania asked a federal judge late Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit that claims he orchestrated human rights abuses in his native Turkey, denouncing it as “pure political theater” by the Turkish government.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged during a speech on Tuesday that he has personally been pursuing a “fight” against the so-called “parallel structure,” adding that his administration is ready to cooperate with district governors to “clear” its members from state bureaucracy.

When the Justice and Development Party (AKP) took office in 2002 under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the party’s commitment to democratization was promising. As many political scientists agreed, the first years of AKP rule were a success story, and that was why, with its secular multi-party democracy and its Muslim character, Turkey had emerged as a role model for the Muslim world.

In a clear sign of his intensified campaign and escalating political vendetta against the movement, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Turkish diplomats on Tuesday to lobby in foreign capitals for the takeover of Gülen-inspired Turkish schools by a Turkish government-run foundation.

Doğu Perinçek, the Workers’ Party (İP) leader who was given a life sentence in 2013 as part of a trial concerning the Ergenekon terrorist organization, has said he has been “fighting a battle” against the faith-based Gülen movement since the 1970s and that now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is supporting him and the İP in the fight.