Turkey is more democratic than China or Iran but with the latest developments it is moving away from being a true democratic country, the former Rome bureau chief of the pro-government Sabah daily, Yasemin Taşkın, told the Italian daily La Repubblica on Thursday.
Taşkın was fired from her position over the weekend due to an interview conducted by her husband Marco Ansaldo with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen for the Italian daily.
Confirming that she was fired the day her husband's interview was published, on March 28, Taşkın expressed her worries about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's possible candidacy in the presidential elections in August. Taşkın said Turkey will pay a price if Prime Minister Erdoğan continues his polarizing rhetoric.
A similar incident happened in 1998 after Ansaldo interviewed terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, who was in exile in Rome at the time of the interview. After her husband published the interview, Taşkın was fired from her job with the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Veteran journalist Yavuz Baydar, who was also fired from Sabah in mid-2013 due to his columns related to the Gezi Park protests and media-government relations, announced on his Twitter account on Sunday that Taşkın was “suddenly sacked from her position” at Sabah after her husband's interview with Gülen was published in the Italian daily.
Published on Today's Zaman, 03 April 2014, Thursday
Latest news, academic excerpts, commentary, book reviews and interviews on Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet Movement (aka The Gulen Movement).
Search This Blog
Overview
Content from 164 countries/states
Categories
New Audio Podcast
Some Highlights
- Top Three Reasons Why Turkey’s President Erdogan is Obsessed with Gulen
- Turkish witch-hunt against the Gulen movement lacks one thing: Evidence
- Bill Clinton on Fethullah Gulen's contribution to the world
- Erdoğan’s war against Hizmet: Step by step
- Is Gulen Movement a religious order?
- Is the Gülen Movement a civil society initiative?
- Popular Islam – Hizmet-Gülen Movement and Fethullah Gülen
- Why do they lie about Fethullah Gülen?
- The Responsibility of the Hizmet movement
- Gülen movement is a chance for humanity, American professor says
- Gulen Movement: An attempt to represent Islam and Muslims positively
- Muslims Must Combat the Extremist Cancer
- The Place of the Gulen Movement in the intellectual history of Islam
- A Universal Islamic Phenomenon in Turkish Religious Practice: the Gülen Case
Suggested Readings
Disclaimer: Copyrights and ideas in the articles belong to their respective owners. Hizmet Movement (Gulen Movement) Blog may not be held liable from the content of articles nor their potential misuse by third parties. Articles shared are not necessarily endorsed. Links and images used in the blog posts may differ from those at their original source. Translated articles are solely intended for the convenience of the readers, and may include minor errors.