January 14, 2014

Hizmet says not linked to graft probe, says democracy is antidote to chaos

The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), whose honorary chairman is Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has categorically rejected accusations that it is linked to the corruption and bribery investigation that has rocked Turkey for nearly a month, urging everyone to avoid language that only deepens the "dangerous polarization" in the country.

A major scandal by the Mukhabarat state

Bülent Keneş

The voice recordings of four phone calls made to Fethullah Gülen were posted on the Internet at midnight on Monday. As you know, Gülen lives in the US. Those who phoned him are some executives from institutions established and run by the people who are inspired by the Hizmet movement in Turkey. The calls do not have any incriminating content. Rather, one of these unlawfully wiretapped recordings exposes how the Hizmet movement was targeted in a conspiracy by circles close to the government.

Witch hunt -- in the name of who and what?

Yavuz Baydar

…The AKP, along with its media and the Kemalists, agree that both the police and the judiciary have been infiltrated by people affiliated with the Hizmet movement. Let us assume that this is true. Take, then, the concrete example of 9th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals, which unanimously upheld the prison sentences in the Operation Sledgehammer secularist military coup case last year. There were five judges and four reserves in the department. If the anti-Hizmet reasoning is correct, we must assume that all those judges are so-called Gülenists. If so, then prove it and convince us; on every level, I stand ready.