Twitter users protest plan to close prep schools in Turkey
#DershaneyleGelenADALET
Date posted: November 18, 2013
Government proposal would close thousands of private ‘dershanes’, seen by many as filling a gap in state education system.
Turkish Twitter users are in an uproar over a report that the government has drafted a law which would close thousands of private preparatory education centres (known as “dershanes”) across the country. Turkish newspaper Zaman claims the draft law would also impose fines on those that do not abide.
Minister of Education Nabi Avci, responding to the report, denied that the final version of the draft law had been completed.
The dershanes provide students with supplementary education in order to prepare them for university entrance exams. The schools are reportedly a point of tension between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the Islamic movement [Hizmet] that runs many of the schools.
Sevgi Akarcesme, columnist at Today’s Zaman, writes:
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The Persecution of the Hizmet (Gülen) Movement in Turkey: A Chronicle
Since the outbreak of the corruption scandal in Turkey in December 2013, Prime Minister and then President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government have been particularly targeting the Hizmet (Gülen) movement.
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Turkey’s first-ever complex housing both a mosque and a cemevi, an Alevi house of worship, has become the latest victim in the battle launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government against the Gülen movement after the Mamak Municipality refused to grant a certificate of occupancy to the complex on the grounds that it was built with “parallel funds.”
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While the government works to finish off the Hizmet movement, it may even call for the expulsion of the US ambassador from the country. The real duty of Halkbank is to act as Iran’s opening door to the world, and the US blockade has been violated for years. We learned that the pro-government media is allergic to shoe boxes [money used in alleged bribery was found in shoe boxes in one of the suspects’ homes].
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