A day after he moved to ban popular social media network Twitter, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said his government will not grant the organizers of the Turkish Olympiads permission to use any stadium or sports hall this year.
Battling a corruption scandal in the run-up to the March 30 local elections, Erdoğan stepped up his efforts to stifle any critical voice and dissent and sought to divert public attention from the corruption investigation that has implicated him and his family.
Erdoğan has cast the graft operation as a plot by the Hizmet movement, inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a claim firmly rejected by the movement.
The Turkish Olympiads, organized by the International Turkish Education Association (TÜRKÇEDER), which is close to the Hizmet movement, bring together hundreds of foreign students each year from Turkish schools established around the world.
"From this year on, there will be no Turkish Olympiads. We will never give permission for the use of a stadium or a sports hall for the Olympiads," Erdoğan said at a rally on Friday.
Published on Today's Zaman, 21 March 2014, Friday
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