My faith is important to me. It helps me see the world in a clear way. My faith gives me a target and goal for my life. Because of my faith, I want to help others and it keeps me motivated. I know without faith I would be very different.
Kanter himself has faced legitimate threats from Erdoğan’s government. In 2017, Kanter escaped Turkish agents in Indonesia while working at a basketball camp for his foundation. He was detained in Romania for several hours and Turkish authorities had already cancelled his passport, making him a stateless man. Eventually, he was able to return to the United States, but not without a Turkish arrest warrant and a four-year prison sentence.
Gülen : I don’t worry about Turkey’s extradition request. I live my last days anyway and it doesn’t matter if I die here, in Turkey, or somewhere else. Never have I had anything to pursue other than doing everything in my power to succeed in the next world and to receive the contentment of the Almighty.
“People fear what they don’t know,” said Howard A. Beers Jr., the chairman of the Ross Township Board of Supervisors, the municipal government that oversees Saylorsburg. “I can tell you directly that these are the nicest people,” Beers said last week after a township meeting at which building inspection fees and a squabble over a local bar were major points of concern. “There’s nothing to fear.”
The situation in Turkey has been very bad since a failed coup attempt in 2016. Erdogan unleashed a massive purge, firing more than 100,000 public-sector workers and imprisoning more than 50,000 people. These people are not criminals. They include judges, academics and journalists. Erdogan thinks free speech is dangerous, and he accuses critics of being terrorists.
Eric Edelman has an expression: “Authoritarian International,” which echoes the old “Comintern,” or “Communist International.” Erdogan is prominent in this league. He is. Will others stand up to him, and that league? That is a major question of our time.
Extraditing dissident Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkey would be a betrayal of American values and should be permanently off the table. President Trump says that handing over Gulen to Turkey is not under consideration “at this point.” But that’s not good enough.