tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66496429635947848542024-02-02T08:05:59.883-08:00Hizmet Movement (Gulen Movement) | Fethullah GulenLatest news, academic excerpts, commentary, book reviews and interviews on Fethullah Gulen and the Hizmet Movement (aka The Gulen Movement).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6364125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-85604072277411945632018-03-28T14:43:00.000-07:002018-07-09T14:45:06.903-07:00Human Rights Threatened in Today’s Turkey<span style="color: #990000;"><b>David Kilgour*</b></span><br />
<br />
For almost a century, Turkey has been an internationally-admired Muslim-majority democracy. Under its World War 1 hero and founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turks obtained full independence in 1923, and later the rule of law, universal literacy, separation of state and religion, rights for women, and NATO membership.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP party were for years impressive. He was elected mayor of Istanbul (1994), prime minister (2003-2014) and president (2014). The economy improved markedly from 2003-2008; he temporarily wound down a 30-year conflict with Turkey’s 15-million-strong Kurdish community, which had cost an estimated 40,000 lives; and accepted 2.5 million refugees from Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.<br />
<br />
Tragically, Erdoğan has since severely undermined Turkey’s democracy and rule of law. In 2013, when a corruption scandal broke involving him and his cabinet, no-one was charged. Judges, prosecutors and police were quickly re-assigned. Fethullah Gülen, the cleric and founder of the Gülen Movement/Hizmet (GM), who had supported him when they both sought membership in the EU and further democratization of Turkey, broke with him over corruption and has since been declared “a terrorist” by Erdoğan.<br />
<br />
American academic Sophia Pandya describes the GM:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“[It] defines itself as a Sufism-inspired, civil society humanitarian organization … (with) thousands of educational, charitable, and cultural organizations (globally) … Gülen has … denied any personal or institutional involvement [in the attempted July 2016 coup by saying] ‘If there are … officers among the coup plotters who consider themselves … sympathizer(s) of Hizmet [Gülen] movement, … [they committed treason against the unity of [Turkey] by (participating) in an event where their own citizens lost their lives.’”</blockquote>
<br />
A packed forum on Turkey hosted by the Anatolian Heritage Federation was held recently within Canada’s Parliament.<br />
<br />
Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International (AI) Canada, noted that Taner Kılıç, president of AI Turkey, remains in prison for allegedly supporting the so-called “terrorist organization FETÖ” (of Gulen), adding, “(AI) in its 57 years never experienced anything like this before…anyone can be detained and arrested for having a communication app Bylock or sending their child to a Gülen Movement affiliated school or having a bank account in Bank Asya…Turkey [now has)] the highest number of jailed journalists …Why silence from Canada and the rest of the world?”<br />
<br />
Government MP Michael Levitt, chair of the House of Commons human rights sub-committee, said: “Families are torn apart. Academics, media professionals, students, and… ordinary people … are being … [detained] without charge…The repression of democracy [is] something that [concerns us deeply]”<br />
<br />
Green Party leader Elizabeth May <a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2018/03/human-rights-violations-in-turkey.html" target="_blank">declared</a>, “I am horrified by the behaviour of the Turkish government… This has not been raised by the United Nations or traditional allies… we as allies of Turkey cannot accept this behavior to go on; we need to be speaking out more forcefully”.<br />
<br />
According to a <a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2018/03/un-human-rights-turkey-emergency.html" target="_blank">report issued</a> by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Al Hussein last week (March 20):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The numbers are just staggering: nearly 160,000 people arrested during an 18-month state of emergency; 152,000 civil servants dismissed, many totally arbitrarily; teachers, judges and lawyers dismissed or prosecuted; journalists arrested, media outlets shut down and websites blocked…One of the most alarming findings of the report is how Turkish authorities reportedly detained some 100 women who were pregnant or had just given birth, mostly on the grounds that they were ‘associates’ of their husbands, who are suspected of being connected to terrorist organizations. Some were detained with their children and others violently separated from them. This is simply outrageous, utterly cruel, and surely cannot have anything whatsoever to do with making the country safer.</blockquote>
<br />
The ongoing and renewed state of emergency allows Erdoğan and his ministers to bypass Parliament in enacting new laws, further limiting basic rights. Their goal appears to be to remove all elements of Atatürk’s secular state, which Turks have defended with their lives over the past nine decades. Turkey’s global friends can only hope that Erdoğan will accept the real lessons of July 15 and move back towards national reconciliation, democracy, and the rule of law.<br />
<br />
<i>*David Kilgour, a lawyer by profession, served in Canada’s House of Commons for almost 27 years. In Jean Chrétien’s Cabinet, he was secretary of state (Latin America and Africa) and secretary of state (Asia-Pacific). He is the author of several books and co-author with David Matas of “Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs.”</i><br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/human-rights-threatened-in-todays-turkey_2476331.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Epoch Times</a>, 26 March 2018, MondayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-56982397273655990682018-03-27T14:22:00.000-07:002018-07-09T14:45:06.819-07:00Jailed Turkish academic Laçiner: I got used to lynching, at least accusations should make senseRenowned Turkish academic and political scientist Prof. Dr. Sedat Laçiner, who was arrested in the wake of a controversial military coup on July 15, 2016, has stated that “I respond to what is said about me, and I don’t run from either prosecution or debate. But the accusations must be a bit rational and fair. I got used to the lynching, but at least the accusations should make sense. Have a heart! I am also a human being.”<br />
<a name='more'></a>Turkish online news outlet T24 has published a letter sent by Professor Laçiner, who as of March 25 has been in prison for 610 days over alleged links to the Gülen movement, to veteran journalist Hasan Cemal, saying that he wants his previous life back.<br />
<br />
“I have worked for decades to serve my country and my people, and I’ve tried hard. I studied at the best universities in the world, and I put forward world-respected studies… In return for all this labor and sacrifice, I was not supposed to be thrown into a deep well. I am sorry and I am worried about my future, even scared. But my fear for my country is greater. It may sound strange to you, but if I fear for myself, I tremble for my country and nation. Sins committed in the past set fire to today, and today’s sins will set fire to our future,” said Laçiner.<br />
<br />
Laçiner studied at Ankara University and the University of Sheffield, where he was awarded an MA in international politics with distinction, and King’s College London, where he obtained his Ph.D. Since 2001, he had been teaching international relations and international security at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University and the National Police Academy Security Studies Institute in Ankara. Professor Laçiner was appointed president of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in 2011, becoming the youngest rector in Turkey<br />
<br />
Laçiner was editor of the Journal of Administrative Studies and Review of International Law and Politics as well as a regular contributor to TRT and other Turkish television and radio broadcasts. He is also chairman of the Journal of Turkish Weekly, a regular columnist for the Star newspaper and general coordinator of Ankara-based think tank the International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO).<br />
<br />
He was appointed adviser to the Higher Education Board (YÖK) president, and in 2011 he was appointed president of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ) by then-Turkish President Abdullah Gül.<br />
<br />
Laçiner is the author/co-author or editor of numerous books and articles, including “Iraq Global War and Turkey,” “The Iraq Crisis,” “Turks and Armenians,” “The World and Turkey,” “European Union with Turkey, Turkey’s Membership’s Impact on the EU,” “The Armenian Diaspora” and “Britain from a Different Perspective.”<br />
<br />
Professor Laçiner was arrested in July 2016 after the attempted coup, and a prosecutor has demanded life imprisonment for him over his alleged ties to the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
The full text of the letter sent by Professor Laçiner to veteran journalist Hasan Cemal through his lawyer is as follows:<br />
<br />
<i>Honourable Hasan Cemal,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Venerable master,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I am writing these lines from Çanakkale Prison, where I have been detained for 20 months… 20 months, 577 days, 13,848 hours, waiting in a dungeon for this madness to end…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>While I was out (a long time ago), reading your articles was a daily routine that I could not give up. Regardless of the subject matter, I cannot forget your effort to be fair, your liberal stance and your attitude in favor of freedom and righteousness. Unfortunately, there is no internet in prison, no computers… Forbidden… Therefore, one of the many rights and opportunities that I have been deprived of is the writings of modest experts like you…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>***</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Dear Cemal,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>On July 20, 2016, I was taken into custody in my home, in my work room… When the police arrived, I was working on my computer and busy writing a column for the internet (website). They turned my house upside down and confiscated my computers and mobile phone. I was arrested three days later. I could not believe that I was said to be guilty of ‘violating the constitution,’ in other words, ‘staging a coup.’ When the police said, ‘We do not know, the public prosecutor will explain,’ I waited for the prosecutor’s interrogation. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>But the prosecutor did not even ask a single question about the coup. When he didn’t ask, I told him where I was on July 15th, what I did. But the prosecutor did not seem to listen to me… Then I appeared before the judge. The hearing, which started at 20:00 in the evening, ended at08:30 the next morning. For a while, even the lawyers and the defendants were asleep in the hall. Interestingly, the judge did not even ask me and the other defendants a single question about July 15th, just like the prosecutor. As if the decisions had already been taken, and our fate was settled… Neither the prosecutor nor the judge was concerned with what I was describing. They did not even ask me where I was on July 15th…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>On the day I was arrested more than half of the prosecutors and judges’ offices in the courthouse were empty and their names removed… If the judge who arrested me had not arrested me, perhaps he himself would have been arrested. The rooms, which are next to the office of the prosecutor who ordered my detention, were emptied the day before, and the prosecutors in those rooms had already been put in prison. I was arrested in such an environment.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Later, I found out that on the morning of July 16, 2016, an arrest list was brought from a ministry in Ankara to the courthouse, and my name was among those names.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Until more than two months from the day I was taken into custody, my lawyer was afraid that something would happen to him, and he couldn’t even come to visit me. The lawyer appointed by the bar due to legal obligation washed his hands of being my lawyer after a few days. I couldn’t find a lawyer for a long time. Some glitzy lawyers said, ‘We believe that Professor Sedat is innocent, but we cannot take this case; otherwise, we would be in danger, too.” The accusations were unreasonable, and the channels of legal aid were closed.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I wasn’t able to find out the reasons for the accusations, the grounds, the evidence, etc., until the indictment came out, I mean for almost eight months. Even then it was not possible to learn any of this when the indictment was written because there was not a single sentence in the indictment saying that I participated in or supported the coup. There wasn’t even a sentence in the indictment saying that there was involvement in the coup in Çanakkale province. The most tragicomic thing was the last page of the indictment, which said, ‘There was no element of force/violence in his actions, but there is a public benefit in his punishment.’ </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>In Article 309 of the Turkish Penal Code [TCK], it is a criminal offense to ‘try to abolish the order prescribed by the Constitution using force and violence…’ In the TCK’s 309th article, force and violence are essential and indispensable elements of a crime. In other words, the indictment admits that there was no force or violence in my actions and admits that there was no offense and that I am not guilty. However, it says my punishment will be to the public’s benefit. So it was clearly said, ‘Sedat Laçiner is not guilty but must be punished.’ Could there be such logic? Could there be such a law?!</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Another interesting point is that there was no coup attempt in Çanakkale province, where I reside. On the night of July 15-16, 2016 there was no military or civilian activity in the city where I lived, nothing related to the coup was attempted. I found out about the coup by chance on television that night. I was sitting on the balcony, and I could not believe that what I heard on the news was real. Despite the fact that my place was on a well-traveled road, there were no unusual events… As a matter of fact, the governor of Çanakkale made a statement to the Anadolu news agency on July 16 and said, ‘We are proud of our province because there was not a single coup plotter from Çanakkale. There were no putschists from our province.’ In fact, he added that there was no coup attempt in Çanakkale as well.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>As soon as I learned about the coup (it must have been around 23:30-00:00), I started sending anti-coup messages through social media. I have stated that coups and violence cannot be a remedy for any problems and that the public should protect democracy and the law. While I was sharing these anti-coup messages, the conflicts still continued in Ankara and İstanbul… It is an interesting coincidence that my first message against the coup attempt and the president’s first message on CNN Türk were made at almost the same time. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>So, from the moment I found out about the coup, I opposed it openly, I took a great risk. Probably if the coup attempt was successful, I would have been one of the people to be imprisoned. You will be surprised, but none of my anti-coup messages on social media were entered into the indictment. I wrote to the prosecutor many times saying I wanted these messages to be filed as evidence. I repeatedly expressed this in court. One-and-a-half years after my arrest, the court finally took the decision to investigate my messages about the coup on social media…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>In this case, it was as if an invisible power was interfering with the collection of the evidence in my favor, or as if the judges and prosecutors feared something by knowing that the case had nothing to do with evidence or proof. I do not know…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The day I was taken into custody an interesting incident took place: One of the police officers searching my house from A to Z found a book titled ‘Who is this Fethullah Gülen’ in my library. This book by Faik Bulut is a critical-antithesis book that levels heavy criticism on Gülen and his movement from the beginning to the end and even includes insults. The police officer was delighted and took this book to his superior as if he had found great evidence of a crime. The superior examined the book for 5-10 minutes and then said to the police officer: ‘This is not for that. This book is considered evidence in his favor, do not take it,’ although the law requires that evidence both for and against be collected. At that moment I realized that in this case anything in my favor was being ignored, even if there was nothing against me…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>They have been searching for months, are still searching, but they haven’t been able to find anything. I am still in detention ‘due to the fact that the evidence has not yet been sufficiently collected.’ These words are actually a confession of my innocence. They are still looking for evidence of my criminality, or I am already being punished, I have been imprisoned for years without being judged. This is called an extrajudicial execution.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>***</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I have been against violence my entire life, I have opposed every kind of coup… My writings, my speeches are quite clear… I am a man who has lived all his life in a glass bell jar. I have laid all my cards on the table. In this case, I am offended to be accused of being a coup plotter while I am one who hates violence, coups, bullying. The baseless mud thrown at me offends me even if it’s slander.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>While I am a writer who has invited the power-holders to respect the constitution and the law, isn’t it ridiculous that I am being accused of violating the constitution?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Does it not go against the grain to accuse a scientist like me who defends civil authority by taking risks in the most sensitive of periods and cursing the coup?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>On the other hand, during the history of the Republic, while many innocent people have been judged on accusations of violating the constitution, the real coup plotters were on the bench as judges, not defendants. You know, Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Hasan Polatkan and 11 other defendants were accused of ’violating the constitution’ on Yassıada and were sentenced to death. The prime minister and the two ministers who were tried on ridiculous accusations such as the baby case, the dog case, the tweezers case, were executed under the instructions of the putschists as in a theatre play. Now it’s frustrating for me to be where they stood. In the meantime, I must say that at the entrance of the hall where I am being tried, there is a sign saying ‘Theatre Hall’ (since there is no courtroom, the hearings are held in the Open Prison Theatre Hall). The Yassıada cases were a black mark on Turkish history. After 57 years, are Turkish law and politics still in the same place?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Dear Hasan Cemal,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Believe me, the cases in which I’m being tried are more nonsense than ‘the dog case’ and ‘the baby case’ against the late Menderes. Because in those cases there were actions of which Adnan Menderes was accused even if they were unfounded. Moreover, I am not a ruler like Bayar or Menderes, who ruled the country for 10 years. Isn’t it pushing the imagination too far to accuse an author, a scholar, a journalist like me who has no power but his pen, who has never used a weapon or been involved in a violent act, of being a coup plotter, terrorist and traitor?</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I asked these questions to the court, too. ‘How many times,’ I cried out helplessly to the people in the courtroom. I asked them: ‘Am I the only one to see that? Are not these accusations, arrest without any evidence, the effort to produce a terrorist from an anti-terror expert, strange?’ It has been almost two years. I am tired now. It affects my mental health negatively that while basic principles of the law are violated, the so-called people of the law who should protect them make any violation of rights seem normal and routine. It’s like everybody is crazy and it seems like my consciousness is open. The worst thing in a nightmare like this is keeping your sanity. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Dear Hasan Cemal, </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>My master,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The only case they have against me is not violation of the Constitution. Lawsuits and investigations are pouring in every day. Although I was dismissed from my job on September 1, 2016, they are constantly opening investigations. I have recently received a yellow envelope from the presidency of Çanakkale University. They found a newspaper article I had written two years ago. They inquired if I had been trying to make our state seem incompetent in that article. And they are demanding my defense of it. And so my days pass; sometimes I have to defend my articles or my speeches.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>One of the cases against me is about the Turkish Penal Code’s Article 301. On the order of Çanakkale University Rector Yücel Acer, who did not approve of my criticism of Turkey’s anti-terror policies, a criminal complaint was filed and the prosecutor’s office opened a case. In this case, I have to defend a column I wrote two years ago. My readers already know that I am a patriotic person. I have always maintained a stance that defends national interests, as much of a liberal as I am. If the government cannot even put up with my criticism about the fight against terrorism in Turkey, the new Turkey cannot even tolerate me. It is quite normal to be alarmed for democracy and justice, for freedom of expression and human rights.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>What I have been through is not merely the question of lynching or destroying an academic named Sedat Laçiner with the help of the judiciary. Through me, not only justice and freedom of opinion, but also reason is being destroyed. A terrorist, a traitor, a coup plotter cannot be derived from the nationalist and patriotic posture of a person like me who always defends the interests of this country, a writer and a scientist like me who supports the government when they do the right thing and whose criticism is always constructive and technical. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I have already give up expecting them to be lawful, but at least they should be reasonable. Seeing that I have been lynched, they should be conscientious. There is logic even in a lie. When someone tells a great lie, people warn him ‘At least make it a plausible lie!’ I can respond to anything said against me. I will not dodge any discussion. But let the accusations be a little more logical, more conscientious. I have gotten used to being lynched, but there should be measure to that. Have a heart! I am also a human being. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>***</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>So far in my hearings, more than 300, maybe 500, witnesses, defendants and complainants were heard. Not even one of these hundreds of people had a criminal complaint against me based on evidence that was witnessed. Not a single soul came up and said, ‘I saw him with a man from FETÖ or the Gülen movement.’ I don’t even know an elder brother or an imam from the movement. I haven’t attended a single meeting. Even when the Çanakkale governor organized the Turkish Language Olympiads, when more than 40,000 people filled the stadium, I wasn’t there. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I don’t have ByLock and I haven’t deposited money in Bank Asya. Not a single witness or prosecutor’s office could claim that ‘he did that,’ and they cannot since I have never attended a meeting of a religious organization. I have never been to a Quran school, either. I am not bragging by saying I have never been to a Quran course, but that is my life. My father and mother were social democrats, and my education was in secular and positivist institutions. From my primary to my doctoral education I have had secular teachers. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>It is also very difficult for me to be a member of a religious group, even a political party or a nongovernmental organization, because of my critical, inquisitive, skeptical, truthful character. My acquaintances know I have a rebellious character. It is impossible for me to take part in organizations where a leader’s every word is accepted as a command. The things I have written and said are the products of my own mind. I have never been connected to anybody or any group by my mind and/or my stomach. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>In almost two years of ongoing proceedings, the brothers, sisters, imams, accountants, sympathizers, artisans, students, businessmen and members of the Gülen movement were all heard. All this was very instructive for me. These hearings were like an obligatory course for me. Thanks to these courts, this was the first time that I have been able to learn about this organization in detail. I suppose when these cases are over I will be a distinguished expert on this structure (!). But now in charges that make no sense, I am accused of being a member of this organization, of being a terrorist and of being a coup plotter. I feel like I will lose my mind when I think about it.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>As I said, they could not find any evidence about me, but they are still searching. Hundreds of people who were heard in the courtroom said they only knew me from the media, and there was no other testimony. I don’t have a ByLock record. The court then decided: ‘Investigate all the phone calls of the defendant between the years 2010 and 2016 to see if the defendant had any calls with ByLock users.’ </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Can you imagine? They will check thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of phone numbers of people who called me or who I called for six-and-a-half years and see if any of them downloaded ByLock, and that would be the evidence with which to charge me. I experienced a similar situation when I was dismissed from my job at the university. They dismissed me because I was on trial, and they added my dismissal as evidence in the case.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>***</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Dear Cemal,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I remained in this country because I believed this country to be a hope for humanity. I finished my master’s and doctorate in England. I could have continued my career there and not come back to Turkey. When I finished my doctorate at King’s College, my mentor insisted I stay in London, but I kindly refused and said: ‘I have to go back to Turkey, my homeland. I have achieved this thanks to Turkey, now I have to pay my debt to my country.’ I thought my country needed my contributions at that time. When I said this, my experienced and wise professor said: ‘Look, Sedat, I respect your decision. But do not forget that the place to which you will return is a Middle Eastern country like Iran, Syria, Egypt. They may not understand you; you may be disappointed.’ </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Unfortunately my counselor was right, I have paid a heavy price in prison for such a crucial life lesson. If I had listened to Professor Karsh that day and stayed in London, my knowledge, my studies would be respected and my research would be supported; at least I would not be in prison. Today I see more clearly why developed countries have developed and those who have not developed tend to stay behind. I understand much better that the key to progress is to respect scientists, writers, journalists and artists.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>***</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Dear Hasan Cemal,</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>There is more to write. Although every word is painful, there is a lot more to write. But I do not want to take your time and tire you out. I just want you to know that it is not a personal story that I am living, but the tragedy of a country… The things I endure are not a drama lived by me that finishes with me; if this silence persists, it will be a drama for millions and future generations… I am not the only one forgotten in the Çanakkale dungeons; freedom of the press, freedom of expression, rule of law, academic freedom are also here… I’m not the only one lying behind bars hopeless about tomorrow; Turkey’s future also lies here…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>It is said ‘Instead of an innocent being jailed, let thousands of criminals walk in the streets’ because if an innocent is jailed, that means justice is imprisoned. As far as I can see there is not one but many innocent people in prison. The periods of oppression — May 27, 1960, March 12, 1971, September 12, 1980, February 28, 1997, etc. — proved that injustice causes not only its victims but our country as a whole to lose. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>One reason for our being underdeveloped is the lack of justice. That’s why this letter should be considered a call for justice that has fallen behind bars and a call for freedom of speech, not as the personal and exceptional cry of a journalist and a scholar who has been prisoned for 20 months. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I miss my home, my children, my wife, my friends, my students and my books… I long for all of them. I want my previous life back. I have worked to serve my country and my people. I have studied at the world’s best universities. I have accomplished things respected worldwide. The reward for all these efforts and self sacrifice should not be being thrown into a deep hole. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I’m sorry and I’m worried about my future, I’m even scared. However, my fear for my country is greater. It may sound strange to you, but if I fear for myself, I tremble for my country and my nation. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The laments of the past are burning us now. Don’t let the laments of the present burn the future… </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>I do not ask for much — a little plausibility, a little justice… We are the people of this country, the children of our country, not the enemy… Let’s leave aside the law of the enemy. Let’s go with the law of fraternity now. Please…</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Best regards.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>Sedat Laçiner, Ph.D.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>March 5, 2018, Çanakkale Closed Prison</i><br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/jailed-turkish-academic-laciner-i-got-used-to-lynching-at-least-accusations-should-make-sense/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stockholm Center for Freedom</a>, 25 March 2018, SundayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-43321894169401401752018-03-26T12:41:00.000-07:002018-07-09T13:07:22.757-07:00Pro-gov’t journalist says jailed Gulenists should be forced to commit suicidePro-government journalist and writer Fazıl Duygun has called on authorities to force people jailed over their links to the Gulen movement to commit suicide.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“FETO supporters should be forced in an appropriate way to commit suicide. Because these vile people do not seem to behave sensibly unless they die,” he tweeted on March 26.<br />
<br />
Duygun’s Twitter account was suspended later in the day but he has said he is going to continue tweeting via another handle.<br />
<br />
Turkish government blames the Gulen movement and calls it FETO, short for the alleged Fethullahist Terror Group.<br />
<br />
The movement denies involvement in the coup and any terror activities.<br />
<br />
More than 160,000 people have passed through police custody, of which 60,000 were remanded in prison pending trial over Gulen links since the summer of 2016.<br />
<br />
According to a 2017 report by the Sweden-based monitoring group Stockholm Freedom Center (SCF), at least 53 people killed themselves both in and outside of prisons in what it calls suspicious suicides, in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 failed coup.<br />
<br />
The relatives of most of them claim that the detainees are not the kind of people to commit suicide, shedding doubt on the official narrative. Rumors also have it that some of the detainees were killed after being subjected to torture under custody.<br />
<br />
Published on <strong></strong><a href="https://turkeypurge.com/pro-govt-journalist-says-jailed-gulenists-forced-commit-suicide" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkey Purge</a>, 26 March 2018, MondayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-39582925428005205082018-03-25T12:51:00.000-07:002018-07-09T13:07:22.684-07:002,500 schools confiscated, 30,000 teachers dismissed over Gülen linksTurkish Education Ministry Undersecretary Yusuf Tekin on Sunday said they have completed a purge of Gülen movement members and institutions in his ministry, the DHA news agency reported.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“The fight against Fetö [a derogatory name used by the Turkish government for the Gülen movement] in the Education Ministry in accordance with a state of emergency declared following July 15 [coup attempt] has been completed. Some 2,500 schools, prep schools and dormitories linked with Fetö have been closed and confiscated and given to the service of the nation. About 30,000 Fetö-linked teachers and staff working for the ministry have been dismissed,” Tekin said during a visit to the Yusufeli district of Artvin province.<br />
<br />
Tekin also said Gülen movement goals of infiltrating the curriculum and textbooks have been dealt with.<br />
<br />
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government pursued a crackdown on the Gülen movement following corruption operations in December 2013 in which the inner circle of the government and then-Prime Minister Erdoğan were implicated.<br />
<br />
Erdoğan also accuses the Gülen movement of masterminding a failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.<br />
<br />
Despite the movement strongly denying involvement in the failed coup, Erdoğan launched a witch-hunt targeting the movement following the putsch.<br />
<br />
A total of 62,895 people were detained in 2017 as part of investigations into the movement, according to Interior Ministry reports.<br />
<br />
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Jan. 5 said 48,305 people were jailed in 2017 alone over Gülen movement links.<br />
<br />
Soylu said on Dec. 12 that 55,665 people have been jailed and 234,419 passports have been revoked as part of investigations into the movement since the failed coup.<br />
<br />
On Nov. 16 Soylu had said eight holdings and 1,020 companies were seized as part of operations against the movement.<br />
<br />
The number of people who have been investigated for alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement reached 402,000 in March, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on March 15.<br />
<br />
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and other civil servants since July 15, 2016 through government decrees issued as part of an ongoing state of emergency declared after the coup attempt.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://www.turkishminute.com/2018/03/25/2500-schools-confiscated-30000-teachers-dismissed-over-gulen-links/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkish Minute</a>, 25 March 2018, SundayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-7309866821078117592018-03-24T10:33:00.000-07:002018-07-09T11:34:16.921-07:00Does the Gülen (Hizmet) Movement Deny the Armenian Genocide?<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Ismail Akbulut</b></span><br />
<br />
In the past, certain individuals affiliated with the Gülen Movement, and sometimes the movement as a whole, have often been accused of supporting lobbying efforts to circumvent the passing of resolutions that commemorate the Armenian genocide. Members of the Armenian diaspora have voiced complaints about this, both in several articles and in verbal statements. To tell you the bitter truth, I would be lying if I said that the accusations held no weight at all.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Let me state something straight from the outset: this is not an attempt to curry favor with the Armenian community. And no, I am not an “ex-Gülenist” bashing the Gülen Movement (GM), otherwise known as the Hizmet Movement. Furthermore, I speak for myself alone. I am not a spokesperson of the GM making an official statement of some sort.<br />
<br />
Instead, this article reflects an honest attempt of an individual participant in GM to articulate his personal views and experiences of GM-Armenian relationships during the last decade.<br />
<br />
First, a bit about Gülen and the movement he has inspired.<br />
<br />
Hizmet, or the GM, is a global faith-inspired civil society peace movement, founded by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. It is best known for fostering universal education, interfaith dialogue and humanitarian activities. Inspired by Gülen’s teachings and philosophies, participants in the GM engage in various altruistic activities to sow the seeds of world-peace for future generations. Indeed, the term “Hizmet,” the name participants use for the movement, means “service” in Turkish.<br />
<br />
Gülen himself emphasizes the importance of human agency in bringing sustainable change and fostering morality and good virtues. For over half a century, he has been an advocate for liberal democratic values such as human rights, social justice, pluralism, the empowerment of women, freedom of speech, thought, and religion. Gülen consistently urges participants in the GM to be law-abiding citizens willing to work to help others, and to promote understanding for others regardless of culture, faith, or ethnicity.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, critics from various backgrounds accuse Gülen of pursuing a range of sinister, secretive agendas. Certain Islamist groups, for instance, have pushed the conspiracy theory that Gülen is actually a secret cardinal of the Pope, or that he’s a crypto-Armenian trying to spread Christianity among Muslims. Moreover, some secularists allege that Gülen is pushing efforts to consolidate powers to transform Turkey into an Islamic caliphate.<br />
<br />
The movement did not develop in a vacuum. The roots of the GM go back to Turkey, hence many of the participants in the movement, including Gülen himself, were educated and socialized in Turkish schools that acted as vessels for the indoctrination of the glory and sanctity of pure “Turkishness.”<br />
<br />
Historically, the GM has never openly supported any political party. Instead, most participants have supported the party that they believed would pursue a liberal democratic agenda. Consequently, the movement was criticized by Islamist parties for “selling out” to the liberals, particularly before 2003.<br />
<br />
However, with the rise of the Justice and Development (AKP) party under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which appeared (according to its own party’s manifesto) to promote liberal democracy, human rights, and inclusion in the European Union; the leadership of the GM, for the first time in its history, decided to form a political alliance based on shared goals. The AKP was not only supported by GM participants, but many liberals, nationalists, leftists and minority groups also voted for that party in the belief it supported democratization.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In fact, GM-affiliated media outlets such as Zaman and Samanyolu TV openly praised and endorsed Erdogan’s AKP, further reinforcing the perception that the whole movement backed the party.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The history of the GM in the US is still very young. Many GM participants came in the early 2000s as students, academics, engineers, businessmen or educators from Turkey. Excited about the “New World,” GM participants wanted to carry out their civil society projects in the US. Several saw opportunities to contribute to American society through establishing intercultural dialogue centers, charter schools or charity organizations.<br />
<br />
This involvement allowed them to foster valuable relationships with pastors, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders. Turkey’s economic boom of the early 2000s allowed for an unprecedented, and deeply longed-for, patriotic self-confidence. Intercultural dialogue trips to Turkey, offered to US-based legislators, religious leaders, academics, media personalities and community leaders created awareness of the spirit of the GM and promoted understanding of Turkey, the greater Anatolian region, and the religion of Islam.<br />
<br />
The first interaction between GM participants and the Armenian community in the US took place after the assassination of Hrant Dink, the prominent and brave Turkish-Armenian journalist and human rights activists in front of his newspaper, Agos, by an ultra-nationalist youth on January 19, 2007.<br />
<br />
Subsequently, GM participants paid their respects through visits to Armenian churches and organizations to express their condolences. These visits opened doors for conversations and dialogue, mainly with Armenians from Turkey. Consequently, GM participants were exposed, often for the first time, to the suffering of Armenians during the Ottoman and modern Turkish eras, and during the genocide itself. In many cases, this created new empathy among some participants of the GM, thus acting as an antidote against years of propaganda.<br />
<br />
Yet, despite this fabulous story of a “Turkified” American Dream, one of the most profound disappointments we felt was the ongoing vilification of Turkish people on the part of many in the Armenian diaspora. On this front, GM participants have been living in a state of inner turmoil.<br />
<br />
On the one hand, we deeply desire a constructive and positive relationship with Armenians. However, on the other, the very word “genocide” has proved to be an obstacle for engagement. Indeed, the facts of 1915 have become the massive “elephant in the room” when the two groups, Turks and Armenians, come into contact. One of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories promoted by some on the Turkish side, was that ultra-nationalist Armenians across the United States, have been engaged in inciting a “revenge” genocide, to be perpetrated on the “poor, innocent” Turkish people.<br />
<br />
During this time, high-ranking Turkish officials and diplomats reached out to GM for support to stop the passing of resolutions that recognize the Armenian genocide.<br />
<br />
Serving the nation of Turkey by visiting US officials in America and repeating to them the Turkish state’s official narrative about 1915 thus became an altruistic patriotic deed.<br />
<br />
Yet, recently, our own support for the Turkish narrative has waned, and GM participants have begun questioning almost everything they had learned about what happened in 1915.<br />
<br />
The turning point was the outcome of July 15th coup d’état attempt in Turkey. After the Turkish government held the GM responsible for the coup attempt, tens of thousands of ordinary citizens, who were in one way or another affiliated with the GM, found themselves illegally profiled, persecuted, detained, arrested, abducted, tortured or disappeared.<br />
<br />
Our experiences thus far cannot be called a genocide; however, we have certainly been scapegoated, and enduring an ongoing collective trauma, with no end in sight. The fact that the Turkish state could label innocent people guilty, and punish them for their association (even tangential) with the GM, opened the majority of our eyes. If they could do this to us, it must be true that they did it to other minority groups (Kurds, Alevis) and certainly to the Armenians. They wiped out Turkey’s Christian-Armenian population and taught us all it never happened.<br />
<br />
So, what are the lessons we can learn here…<br />
<br />
Driven by patriotic and sometimes nationalistic sentiments, participants in the GM, including myself, have deceived ourselves by acting in a way that contradicted our very values. We failed. We did not question the Turkish narrative, and we did not listen nor read the stories of Armenians.<br />
<br />
Today, I personally regret and sincerely apologize for my involvement in efforts that undermined the suffering of Armenians that endured one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century, the Armenian genocide.<br />
<br />
I was intending to end this article here, with an apology that was long overdue, instead I would like to make three humble suggestions on how I believe we could repair our relations:<br />
<br />
Firstly, I ask GM participants to show genuine gestures to Armenians by showing up to genocide commemorations or contributing to Armenian organizations.<br />
<br />
Secondly, I wish Armenian journalists would reach out to Gülen for an interview with him to ask him about his views on what happened during 1915.<br />
<br />
Lastly, I ask my Armenian brothers and sisters to welcome and engage with GM participants to listen to their stories about what is happening today in Erdogan’s Turkey.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/03/24/does-the-gulen-hizmet-movement-deny-the-armenian-genocide/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Armenian Mirror-Spectator</a>, 24 March 2018, Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-77482024644973587622018-03-23T11:19:00.000-07:002018-07-09T11:34:17.005-07:00Belgium court sentences man to 6-month in prison over online threatsA local court in Belgium’s Limburg province has given 6-month jail time plus 600 euros fine to a 37-year-old man who threatened Gulen supporters online.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“Come on, traitors, I’m waiting for you,” the man sent threats, via Facebook messages, to members of the Vuslat, an association affiliated with the Gulen movement supporters in Belgium, a day after the July 15, 2016 failed coup.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, he posted a picture of him posing alongside a firearm, Turkish flag and some ammunition.<br />
<br />
The prison sentence was postponed while he is required to pay 600 euros as well as hearing costs, Brussels-based Het Laatste Nieuws said March 22.<br />
<br />
Turkish government blames the Gulen movement for the July 15, 2016 failed attempt while the latter denies involvement.<br />
<br />
More than 150,000 people have been detained over Gulen links so far.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://turkeypurge.com/belgium-court-sentences-man-6-month-prison-online-threats" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkey Purge</a>, 23 March 2018, FridayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-20059989414779344212018-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:002018-07-09T14:41:41.707-07:00Canada’s Green Party leader on human rights violations in Turkey: I am entirely horrifiedCanada’s Green Party leader and lawmaker Elizabeth May said during a panel discussion held at the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa on widespread human rights violations in Turkey that “I am entirely horrified by the behavior of the Turkish government. We need to be more speaking out loud.”<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Canada’s capital city of Ottawa hosted an important panel discussion organized by the Anatolian Heritage Federation (AHF) on “Democracy in Turkey, Human Rights and Freedoms” on Tuesday evening. The discussion, moderated by Canadian human rights advocate David Kilgour, was participated in by Michael Levitt, chairman of the International Human Rights Committee in the Canadian Parliament and a member of the ruling Liberal Party; Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada; and Lorne Waldman, one of Canada’s most famous lawyers, via video conferencing from Toronto. The event, which the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa tried to prevent from taking place, was attended by numerous parliamentarians.<br />
<br />
Two female guests who were subjected to persecution by autocratic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government also participated in the panel discussion and and shared their experiences. Around 160 attendees who filled the hall were reportedly horrified by the heartbreaking stories of the victimized women and could not hold back their tears.<br />
<br />
Speaking on the dire situation in Turkey and the human rights violations targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, MP Michael Levitt said: “It is bittersweet to be here with you. It is very sad that people are in this position. Families are torn apart. Academics, media professionals, students and just ordinary people on the streets of Turkey are being taken off and placed in detention without charge, without a process.”<br />
<br />
Levitt also added that “the repression of democracy in Turkey is a great concern, something that my colleagues and I under a subcommittee from across parties are deeply concerned about. And I want to tell you that I stand here again, if my colleagues would be up here with me, we would all say that we want to hear your stories.”<br />
<br />
“Tonight is a night with two purposes. It is a night of celebration of this wonderful community, and it is also a night for you to deliver a message to remind us all up here on the Hill that freedom and democracy in Turkey are absolutely essential, and for you to raise your voices for common cause with people in Turkey and families there,” said Levitt.<br />
<br />
Underlining the fact that Taner Kılıç, the Turkey president of Amnesty International, was jailed on allegations of supporting the so-called “terrorist organization FETÖ” and having the ByLock mobile messaging app on his phone, even though he did not, Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada Neve provided information about human rights violations in Turkey.<br />
<br />
“Amnesty International [has been] active for 57 years, and they have never experienced [anything] like this before. In Turkey, any person can be detained and arrested due to having a communication app ByLock, or sending their child to a Gülen movement-affiliated school, or having a bank account in Bank Asya,” Neve said, adding that “Turkey comes first in the list by having the highest number of jailed journalists.”<br />
<br />
“Yet, Turkey continues to see mild criticism. The United Nations Human Rights Council is in Geneva right now, an opportunity for these great concerns. Hardly a word of concern uttered. Why silence from Canada and the rest of the world? Why the unwillingness to raise concerns? Why the lack of action? This has to change,” said Neve.<br />
<br />
Leader of Canada’s opposition Green Party Elizabeth May said during the discussion that “I am entirely horrified by the behaviour of the Turkish government. We need to be more speaking out loud.”<br />
<br />
“I am wondering how somebody could condemn amnesty International’s officials, and place people with huge sentences in jails. It is a real condemnation of the international community as a whole. This has not been raised by the United Nations, Turkey’s traditional allies, this conduct is not acceptable. And we as allies of Turkey cannot accept this behaviour to go on. So we need to be speaking out more forcefully,” said May.<br />
<br />
Lorne Waldman, an immigration and refugee lawyer in Toronto, connected to the event via Skype and said: “We have a large number of people who are seeking asylum, and fortunately for the most part they are accepted, but there are a few members who have not fully appreciated the seriousness of the situation in Turkey. So, we have some clients whose claims have been rejected even though it is clear to us, there is a great risk in returning to Turkey.”<br />
<br />
“However, I believe that the government ensures that all refugee claim cases are carefully scrutinized before any refugee claimant who has been rejected has to return to Turkey,” Waldman said and added: “The second issue is that the process for family reunification for refugee claims is extremely slow. The third issue is Turkish people in Turkey and those in third countries. Canada should have a sponsorship to save those people.”<br />
<br />
It was learned that the Turkish Foreign Ministry was disturbed by the panel discussion that brought human rights violations in Turkey to the agenda of Canada. Selçuk Ünal, Turkey’s ambassador in Ottawa, tried to prevent the event from taking place. After he failed in that endeavor, members of the Turkey-Canada Friendship Group in the Turkish Parliament wrote a letter to Canadian parliamentarians requesting that they not attend the event.<br />
<br />
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.<br />
<br />
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and other civil servants since July 2016. Turkey’s interior minister announced on December 12, 2017 that 55,665 people have been arrested.<br />
<br />
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on March 15, 2018 that at least 402,000 people have been the subject of legal proceedings initiated by the Turkish government over alleged links to the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
A total of 48,305 people were arrested by courts across Turkey in 2017 over their alleged links to the Gülen movement, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Dec. 2, 2017. “The number of detentions is nearly three times higher,” Soylu told a security meeting in İstanbul and claimed that “even these figures are not enough to reveal the severity of the issue.”<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/canadas-green-party-leader-on-human-rights-violations-in-turkey-i-am-entirely-horrified/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stockholm Center for Freedom</a>, 22 March 2018, ThursdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-36441213253197250952018-03-21T11:05:00.000-07:002018-07-09T11:12:54.950-07:00President Erdogan takes tips from Putin in targeting dissidents abroad<b>What happened?</b><br />
<br />
On 14 March 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats after Russia refused to explain how a Russian-made nerve agent was used in the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, in Salisbury, England on 4 March 2018. Britain, the US, Germany and France have released a joint statement deploring the Salisbury poisoning as an “assault on UK sovereignty” and emphasised that such intervention is a “breach of international law”.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Russia is notorious for targeting those who have fallen afoul of the Kremlin. There is a long list of cases where Russia’s dissidents and renegade spies have fallen ill or died under suspicious circumstances. Similarly, Turkey’s Erdogan regime has been systematically targeting dissidents abroad through criminal activities.<br />
<br />
On 4 March 2018, Reuters reported that Switzerland is investigating a plot in which Turkish diplomats planned to drug and kidnap a Swiss-Turkish businessman, believed to be affiliated with the Hizmet Movement. The Office of the Attorney General in Switzerland confirmed a criminal case is being conducted into political intelligence gathering and prohibited acts towards a foreign state.<br />
<br />
This latest plot joins the long list of Hizmet participants who have been illegally targeted by the Erdogan regime in the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt.<br />
<br />
<b>What does this mean?</b><br />
<ul>
<li>The Turkish government has been systematically using a variety of methods to target Hizmet participants outside Turkey.</li>
<li>After the July 15 coup attempt, the Turkish government set up a telephone hotline so that people can report Hizmet participants.Text messages and social media posts were used to incite people to inform on Hizmet participants and others deemed critical of the Erdogan regime.</li>
<li>On 4 August 2016, Turkey’s state-run news agency published an infographic targeting Hizmet inspired people and foundations in the UK, linking them to terrorism.</li>
<li>On 13 March 2018, Germany launched an investigation into the controversial group called Osmanen Germania BC on the grounds that the group is reportedly involved in violent crime and has ties to the Turkish government and Turkish National Intelligence (MIT).</li>
<li>Stockholm Center for Freedom documented an increasing number of cases of abductions and enforced disappearances by the Turkish government of the Erdogan regime’s critics. Most of the victims are believed to be Hizmet participants.</li>
<li>The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), Germany’s largest Islamic organisation, has admitted that some of its imams have acted as informants for the Turkish government.</li>
<li>A pro-government Turkish journalist, Cem Küçük, said that the Turkish intelligence (MIT) has the authorisation to conduct operations abroad and many overseas Turks are willing to carry out assassinations on behalf of MIT.</li>
<li>In March 2017, Switzerland had launched a criminal investigation into foreign spying on the country’s Turkish community by Ankara.</li>
<li>In May 2017, a Turkish-origin school principal and two businessmen of Turkish origin were abducted in Malaysia, to be forcefully taken to Turkey.</li>
<li>In November 2017, in the US, an investigation was instigated into the activities of ex-Trump aide Michael Flynn for an alleged plan to kidnap Fethullah Gülen in return for $15m.</li>
<li>In a report on the diaspora politics of Turkey in the UK, the Turkey Institute, a London-based research centre, concluded that “there are illegal activities conducted by the Turkish state which target dissidents of the regime abroad often through means of labelling people by creating lists, sometimes kidnapping individuals, and even assassinating Turkish-/Kurdish-origin political dissidents living abroad, resulting in a generation of fear among the diaspora.”</li>
<li>In its latest report published on 20 March 2018, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights suggested that Turkey should ‘promptly end the state of emergency and restore the normal functioning of institutions and the rule of law’, and ‘rescind passport cancellation orders and deprivation of citizenship procedures, and enable full freedom of movement’.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Dr Ismail Mesut Sezgin, Director of the Centre for Hizmet Studies, said:<br />
<blockquote>
Turkey has been aggressively transferring its domestic politics abroad and mobilising the Turkish diaspora in direct and indirect forms via diplomatic agents, religious officials, and politically driven NGOs. Unfortunately, such practices have led to an increasing number of cases of abductions, attacks, incidents of hate speech, abuses, threats and profiling of dissident groups, including the Hizmet Movement. The gradual erosion of fundamental human rights, President Erdogan’s authoritarian practices, and his aggressive foreign policy choices are often likened to the Putin regime. However, it appears that President Erdogan also takes tips from the Putin regime in targeting its critics abroad to send a message to those who dare to dissent. </blockquote>
<br />
Published on <a href="https://www.hizmetstudies.org/news/response/president-erdogan-takes-tips-from-putin-in-targeting-dissidents-abroad/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Centre for Hizmet Studies</a>, 21 March 2018, WednesdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-20014412287126278872018-03-20T10:38:00.000-07:002018-07-09T11:00:32.067-07:00UN Human Rights: Turkey should promptly end its protracted state of emergencyRoutine extensions of the state of emergency in Turkey have led to profound human rights violations against hundreds of thousands of people – from arbitrary deprivation of the right to work and to freedom of movement, to torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary detentions and infringements of the rights to freedom of association and expression, according to a report* issued by the UN Human Rights Office on Tuesday.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The report, which covers the period between 1 January and 31 December 2017, warns that the state of emergency has facilitated the deterioration of the human rights situation and the erosion of the rule of law in Turkey, and may “have long-lasting implications on the institutional and socio-economic fabric of Turkey.”<br />
<br />
While the UN Human Rights Office recognizes the complex challenges Turkey has faced in addressing the 15 July 2016 attempted coup and a number of terrorist attacks, the report says, “the sheer number, frequency and lack of connection of several [emergency] decrees to any national threat seem to…point to the use of emergency powers to stifle any form of criticism or dissent vis-à-vis the Government.”<br />
<br />
“The numbers are just staggering: nearly 160,000 people arrested during an 18-month state of emergency; 152,000 civil servants dismissed, many totally arbitrarily; teachers, judges and lawyers dismissed or prosecuted; journalists arrested, media outlets shut down and websites blocked – clearly the successive states of emergency declared in Turkey have been used to severely and arbitrarily curtail the human rights of a very large number of people,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said.<br />
<br />
“One of the most alarming findings of the report,” he added, “is how Turkish authorities reportedly detained some 100 women who were pregnant or had just given birth, mostly on the grounds that they were ‘associates’ of their husbands, who are suspected of being connected to terrorist organizations. Some were detained with their children and others violently separated from them. This is simply outrageous, utterly cruel, and surely cannot have anything whatsoever to do with making the country safer.”<br />
<br />
The report cites the April 2017 referendum that extended the President’s executive powers into both the legislature and the judiciary as seriously problematic, resulting in interference with the work of the judiciary and curtailment of parliamentary oversight over the executive branch. Twenty-two emergency decrees were promulgated by the end of 2017 (and two more since the cut-off date of the report), with many regulating matters unrelated to the state of emergency and used to limit various legitimate activities by civil society actors. The decrees also foster impunity, affording immunity to administrative authorities acting within the framework of the decrees, the report notes.<br />
<br />
The report contains accounts from several individuals who were dismissed from their jobs for perceived links with Gulenist networks, for using specific messaging applications or through analysis of their social media contacts. “The decrees broadly refer to ‘link or connection’ with ‘terrorist organisations’ without describing the nature of such links, giving large discretion of interpretation to the authorities,” the report states, adding there were serious due process violations. “Many individuals arrested…were not provided with specific evidence against them and were unaware of investigations against them.”<br />
<br />
The report also documents the use of torture and ill-treatment in custody, including severe beatings, threats of sexual assault and actual sexual assault, electric shocks and waterboarding by police, gendarmerie, military police and security forces.<br />
<br />
Those dismissed from their jobs lost their income, social benefits, medical insurance and even their homes, as various decrees stipulate that public servants “shall be evicted from publicly-owned houses or houses owned by a foundation in which they live within 15 days.”<br />
<br />
“Since the stated purpose of the emergency regime was to restore the normal functioning of the democratic institutions, it is unclear how measures such as the eviction of families of civil servants from publicly-owned housing may contribute to this goal,” the report states.<br />
<br />
The report also states that about 300 journalists have been arrested on the grounds that their publications contained “apologist sentiments regarding terrorism” or other “verbal act offences” or for “membership” in terrorist organisations.<br />
<br />
Over 100,000 websites were reportedly blocked in 2017, including a high number of pro-Kurdish websites and satellite TV channels.<br />
<br />
The report stresses that measures restricting rights during a state of emergency must be “limited to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, meaning they must be proportional and limited to what is necessary, in terms of duration, geographic coverage and material scope.”<br />
<br />
The report recommends that Turkey promptly end the state of emergency, restore the normal functioning of its institutions, revise and repeal all legislation that is not compliant with Turkey’s international human rights obligations, including the emergency decrees. It also stresses the need to ensure independent, individualized reviews and compensation for victims of arbitrary detentions and dismissals.<br />
<br />
The report also noted continued allegations of human rights violations specific to South-East Turkey, confirming the patterns of violations highlighted in the March 2017 UN Human Rights Office report** on the situation in the region. This included killings, torture, violence against women, the excessive use of force, destruction of housing and cultural heritage, prevention of access to emergency medical care, safe water and livelihoods, and severe restrictions of the right to freedom of expression. Turkey has consistently failed to conduct credible criminal investigations into the civilian deaths that occurred in the context of the 2015-2016 security operations in the South-East, the report states. According to the Ministry of Defence, between July 2015 and June 2017, 10,657 “terrorists were neutralized.” Lack of clarity over the meaning of the word “neutralized” is cause for deep concern, High Commissioner Zeid said, calling on the authorities to provide detailed information about the fate of these individuals.<br />
<br />
“I urge the Government of Turkey to ensure that these allegations of serious human rights violations are investigated and the perpetrators are brought to justice,” the High Commissioner said. “I again call on the Government to grant my Office full and unfettered access to be able to directly, independently and objectively assess the human rights situation in the South-East of the country.”<br />
<br />
The report is based on information gathered and verified through interviews with 104 victims, witnesses and relatives of victims; analysis of Government information; as well as open source documents, satellite images and audio-visual material, among other relevant and reliable materials. The report is not an exhaustive account of the human rights situation in Turkey, but illustrates patterns of rights violations in the country. The confidentiality of sources is strictly protected, to prevent reprisals.<br />
<br />
*The full report can be accessed <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/2018-03-19_Second_OHCHR_Turkey_Report.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a><br />
<br />
**The 2017 report can be accessed <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/OHCHR_South-East_TurkeyReport_10March2017.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a><br />
<br />
Published on <strong></strong><a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22853" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">UN Human Rights Office</a>, 20 March 2018, TuesdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-39790908888588536322018-03-19T10:54:00.000-07:002018-07-09T11:00:32.092-07:00Report: Flynn Had Way More Potential Conflicts Than We Previously KnewMichael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who subsequently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, had a slew of previously unreported conflicts of interest, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-19/what-michael-flynn-could-tell-the-russia-investigators" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reported</a> Monday.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Flynn’s previously reported conflicts were already damning: He lied to investigators about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador before Trump took office. He and his firm failed to register as foreign agents doing work that, Flynn’s attorney later admitted, “could be construed to have principally benefited the republic of Turkey.” Part of that work included an effort to smear — and possibly kidnap, though Flynn’s lawyer has denied that — Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of orchestrating the failed 2016 coup against him.<br />
<br />
Flynn reportedly put on hold a plan to arm Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State — a move beneficial to the Turkish government — 10 days before before Trump took office, when no one knew Flynn was working as an agent of the Turkish government. He also reportedly promoted a plan to build nuclear power plants across the Middle East in a June 2015 trip he failed to disclose.<br />
<br />
Bloomberg on Monday reported on conflicts related to Iranian-born businessman Bijan Kian, who was a close business partner of Flynn’s until recently. Flynn’s relationship with Kian goes back to 2008, according to Bloomberg’s report. TPM has previously reported on the pair’s connection via the Nowruz Commission, which promotes and celebrates the Persian New Year. The commission also listed former CIA director Jim Woolsey as an ambassador.<br />
<br />
In 2013, when Flynn was leading the Defense Intelligence Agency, Kian got Woolsey to set up a meeting between him and Flynn to promote his computer chip company, per the report. Afterward, Flynn tasked the DIA’s chief scientist to “help the chip maker pass military certification standards,” Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources Kian briefed.<br />
<br />
After President Barack Obama fired Flynn in 2014, according to Bloomberg, Kian brought Flynn onto the board of his company, GreenZone Systems Inc. In 2015, GreenZone won a $1.1 million contract from the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, which works with the DIA (but does not report to it, as Bloomberg noted).<br />
<br />
Later that year, on a previously-reported trip to Saudi Arabia where Flynn promoted nuclear reactors, he also attempted to sell Kian’s computer chip, according to Bloomberg. Flynn then lied about the trip on federal disclosure forms, according to the report.<br />
<br />
A year after that trip, according to Bloomberg, Kian met with staffers from the House Homeland Security Committee in late 2016 to once again promote GreenZone products. He then changed topics suddenly, according to the report, and “abruptly ushered in another group with an entirely separate and unexpected agenda” — the demonization of Gulen, the Muslim cleric.<br />
<br />
Finally, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources who worked on the 2016 presidential transition, that Kian and Flynn worked on a proposal to create an intelligence force of private contractors that would report directly to the national security adviser, circumventing the CIA. According to the report, Flynn was fired in February 2017 before he could “shepherd those plans into action.”<br />
<br />
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee and perhaps the legislator most attentive to Flynn’s various business dealings and ethics violations, told Bloomberg News that the newly reported conflicts indicate “that General Flynn’s use of public positions for profit was far more wide-ranging than previously known.”<br />
<br />
“We have been raising red flags and requesting documents about these issues for the past year,” Cummings told Bloomberg. “But the White House continues to stonewall us, and Republicans in Congress continue to wall off the White House from serious oversight.”<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-flynn-had-more-conflicts-bijan-kian" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TPM</a>, 19 March 2018, MondayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-44416669829248190122018-03-18T10:27:00.000-07:002018-07-09T10:27:34.980-07:00Asylum for Fethullah Gulen Movement Supporters?<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Jason Dzubow*</b></span><br />
<br />
Until the recent coup d’état attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, most people in the United States–including journalists and human rights advocates–had never heard about the Gulen Movement or its founder Fethullah Gulen. That all changed after the Turkish government blamed the coup effort on Mr. Gulen and his followers and demanded his extradition from the U.S., where he has lived in exile since 1999. Since then, American and international press agencies have published numerous articles about this man and his movement.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
While people in the West may be surprised that they only recently learned about “one of the world’s most important Muslim figures” and his movement promoting secular government, democracy, and religious tolerance, they should not be surprised that some governments in Central Asia and Eastern Europe have persecuted Mr. Gulen’s followers for many years.<br />
<br />
I am an attorney specializing in political asylum. In my practice, I have worked with several Gulen movement followers who have fled horrific government abuse in their home countries and applied for asylum in the United States. In the wake of the failed coup and the vicious crackdown against followers in Turkey and throughout Central Asia, I expect to assist more such asylum seekers in the coming months.<br />
<br />
Gulen movement supporters who have been persecuted or who fear persecution in their home country due to an association with the movement should qualify for a grant of asylum in the U.S. on the basis of both religion and political opinion. Even those who are not closely associated with the movement, but who fear persecution because the government falsely accuses them of involvement, should have strong cases for asylum.<br />
<br />
Any religious movement, such as the Gulen movement, that promotes the ideals of secular governance, nonviolence, religious and cultural pluralism, and respect for science alongside its spiritual teachings should be a welcome element in Central Asia and Russia. Unfortunately, many governments see the Gulen movement as a mortal threat to their dominance. In Turkey, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, Gulenist schools have been shut down. In many instances, followers have been subjected to harassment, detention, and torture. We have learned from clients and press reports that in Russia, government security agents have routinely raided Gulen movement meetings in private residences, confiscated reading materials, and arrested the participants. Once in detention, the Gulen movement followers undergo interrogations and severe beatings. The women are frequently raped and movement leaders are sentenced to long prison terms or killed outright. The treatment of Gulen movement followers in Uzbekistan is at least as horrific due to the country’s chronic conflict with Turkey and the consistently unhinged behavior of the country’s dictator, Islam Karimov, and his henchmen.<br />
<br />
For the present, international focus on the crackdown against Gulen movement followers remains on Turkey. But the mistreatment of Gulen followers will also likely rise dramatically throughout the region and beyond as dictatorial governments seek to confirm their paranoid suspicions and keep their prisons filled with perceived opponents. The U.S. and other countries that respect their moral and international legal obligations to protect refugees will continue to face the dilemma of speaking out forcefully against the mistreatment of Gulen movement followers while also trying to maintain important strategic relationships with the countries that have ramped up their persecution.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>* This post is by my esteemed law partner Todd Pilcher. Todd’s practice focuses on asylum and family-based immigration. Over the course of his career, Todd has represented hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers from all over the world, with a particular focus on asylum seekers from Central Asia and Latin America. He is also an adjunct professor of asylum and refugee law at the George Washington University Law School. Prior to joining Dzubow & Pilcher, Todd worked for many years as a senior managing attorney at Whitman-Walker Health Legal Services in Washington, DC.</i><br />
<br />
Published on <strong></strong><a href="http://www.asylumist.com/2016/08/10/asylum-for-fethullah-gulen-movement-supporters/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Asylumist</a>, 10 August 10, 2016Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-50856258662651350522018-03-17T10:05:00.000-07:002018-07-09T10:23:18.785-07:00Man with 1 dollar bills acquitted of coup charges after admitting cocaine purchaseMehmet Sinan İnce, a Turkish lawyer representing Turkey’s infamous mob boss Alaattin Çakıcı, have been acquitted of membership in the Gülen group, after he admitted that he was using one dollar bills that were found in his home to buy cocaine, the Sputnik reported.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Turkish investigators claimed possession of a one dollar bill and the serial number on the note is a mode of secret communication among Gülenists. This claim has led many people with a dollar bill to languish in Turkish jails including a US national who works at NASA.<br />
<br />
Sinan İnce was earlier arrested after police found on-dollar bills during a raid on his house. During the trial on Friday, İnce defended himself by claiming that he used the bills to buy cocaine and therefore he had nothing to do with the Gülen group, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a coup attempt in 2016.<br />
<br />
The court reportedly ruled for the release of the lawyer and accuitted him of any coup-related charges.<br />
<br />
Turkish authorities have so far come up with many different theories regarding the $1 bills that come out of people’s pockets. According to one theory, the letters at the start of the banknotes’ serial numbers correspond to ranks in the movement. For instance, the letter “F” indicates a high-ranking soldier or police chief, while J and C represent low-ranking soldiers. B is for students, while E and S are for instructors and academics in Gülenist schools.<br />
<br />
Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag is among those authorities who are convinced that the $1 bill is a clear indication of membership in the Gülen movement. In one of his recent interviews with the pro-gov’t A Haber television channel, he said, “There is no doubt that this $1 bill has some important function within the Gülenist terror organization.”<br />
<br />
Recently speaking to The Associated Press, a senior government official also said Turkish authorities are sure that these specific $1 bills were being used to send “secret” messages or designate the rank of the holder.<br />
<br />
“Multiple people questioned over involvement in the military coup of July 15 told prosecutors they received $1 bills from superiors within the Gülen movement. They were told that Fethullah Gülen himself had blessed the banknotes,” the official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://turkeypurge.com/man-1-dollar-bills-acquitted-coup-charges-admitting-cocaine-purchase" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkey Purge</a>, 16 March 2018, FridayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-66997366102996663162018-03-16T10:15:00.000-07:002018-07-09T10:23:18.810-07:00Local head of Turkey’s ruling AKP appointed as trustee for 7 seized companies in GaziantepMahmut Birlik, vice chairman of the Gaziantep branch of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by autocratic Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been appointed as trustee for seven companies that were seized and transferred to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) due to their owners’ alleged links to the Gülen movement.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
According to a report by the left-leaning Cumhuriyet daily, Birlik was appointed as trustee for Naksan Holding, SOHO, Cardiatech Medical Products, Vera Marine, Verimli Plastic Film and Energy, Atlas Carpet and Furnishing and Sanal instruction simulator productions.<br />
<br />
Thousands of companies, business associations and media outlets, including newspapers and television and radio stations established by people who are affiliated with the Gülen movement have been seized by the government.<br />
<br />
More than 1,020 companies with a total value of $12 billion in assets have been seized and then transferred to the TMSF since a failed coup in 2016. The companies in question were mostly targeted as part of a sweeping state crackdown against the Gülen movement. Among the seized companies are more than 180 media outlets, most of which used to have critical editorial policies toward the government.<br />
<br />
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.<br />
<br />
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and other civil servants since July 2016. Turkey’s interior minister announced on December 12, 2017 that 55,665 people have been arrested.<br />
<br />
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported on March 15, 2018 that at least 402,000 people have been the subject of legal proceedings initiated by the Turkish government over alleged links to the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
A total of 48,305 people were arrested by courts across Turkey in 2017 over their alleged links to the Gülen movement, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Dec. 2, 2017. “The number of detentions is nearly three times higher,” Soylu told a security meeting in İstanbul and claimed that “even these figures are not enough to reveal the severity of the issue.” (SCF with turkeypurge.com)<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/local-head-of-turkeys-ruling-akp-appointed-as-trustee-for-7-seized-companies-in-gaziantep/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stockholm Center for Freedom</a>, 16 March 2018, FridayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-41541009554365218812018-03-15T00:02:00.000-07:002018-03-15T01:24:59.239-07:00Switzerland probes Turkish diplomats’ attempt to kidnap pro-Gülen businessmanSwitzerland is investigating whether Turkish diplomats planned to drug and kidnap a Swiss-Turkish businessman, who is an alleged member of the Gülen movement, as part of a crackdown after the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
According to a report by Reuters, the Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger said that one of the two envoys linked to the plot to snatch the Swiss-based businessman – who was allegedly active in the Gülen movement – remained in office in Bern while a second had since returned to Turkey.<br />
<br />
“The Office of the Attorney General can confirm that in this context a criminal case is being conducted on suspicion of political intelligence gathering … and prohibited acts for a foreign state,” the OAG said in an emailed statement. The investigation began in March 2017, it added.<br />
<br />
The OAG said it had asked the foreign ministry to clarify whether the suspects enjoyed diplomatic immunity now or at the time of the alleged crime. Waiving any immunity was necessary to carry out further investigations, it added.<br />
<br />
The Turkish embassy in Bern did not immediately respond to an email sent by Reuters seeking comment.<br />
<br />
The OAG said a year ago that it had begun a criminal inquiry into possible foreign spying on Switzerland’s Turkish community.<br />
<br />
Swiss intelligence got wind of the 2016 kidnapping plot while it was being hatched, Tages-Anzeiger reported, adding that the intended victim remains under police protection.<br />
<br />
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.<br />
<br />
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.<br />
<br />
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and other civil servants since July 2016. Turkey’s interior minister announced on December 12, 2017 that 55,665 people have been arrested. On December 13, the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.<br />
<br />
A total of 48,305 people were arrested by courts across Turkey in 2017 over their alleged links to the Gülen movement, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said on Dec. 2, 2017. “The number of detentions is nearly three times higher,” Soylu told a security meeting in İstanbul and claimed that “even these figures are not enough to reveal the severity of the issue.”<br />
<br />
Published <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/switzerland-probes-turkish-diplomats-attempt-to-kidnap-pro-gulen-businessman/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stockholm Center for Freedom</a>, 15 March 2018, Thursday Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-23747335880502398582018-03-14T23:58:00.000-07:002018-03-15T01:24:59.069-07:00Pakistan’s Sindh High Court restrains Turkish teachers’ deportationThe Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday restrained the concerned authority from deporting former employees of Pak-Turk International School, ruling that they can live in the country but only as refugees.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
A division bench was hearing a joint petition of as many as eight former employees of the school who had approached the SHC against any possible deportation from Pakistan.<br />
<br />
The petitioners stated that Ministry of Interior is trying to deport them back to Turkey on pressure from the government. They cited that previously too, the court had restrained the federal authorities from deporting the Turkish nationals who were teaching in the school.<br />
<br />
The petitioners said that despite the clear directives of the court, the concerned authority is still trying to deport them to Turkey but they want to live in Pakistan. They added that they are being harassed and pressurized to leave Pakistan.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/03/12/shc-restrains-turkish-teachers-deportation/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pakistan Today</a>, 13 March 2018, TuesdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-68437804746857734562018-03-13T23:56:00.000-07:002018-03-15T01:24:59.517-07:00Belgium firm to sue Turkey over Gülen-linked assetsA Belgian company, Cascade Investments NV, has launched an $80 million arbitration claim against Turkey in the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ISCID).<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The claim alleges that Cascade’s investment’s in a media services company, Cihan News Distribution, were unlawfully expropriated by the Turkish state in the crackdown that followed the coup attempt of July 2016. This, according to Cascade, violates the bilateral Belgium-Turkish trade agreement.<br />
<br />
The case though appears to involve another dimension according to Turkish financial website Dunya’s Kerim Ülker. His investigations suggest that Cascade Investments NV may have been established by members of the Gülen movement, with assets from Gülen-linked businesses in Turkey having been transferred to the company. Amongst them were Cihan News Distribution which owns the building from which the Gülenist newspaper <i>Zaman</i> operated until it was confiscated by the Turkish authorities and shut down.<br />
<br />
By transferring assets to the ownership of companies based outside Turkey, the Gülen movement, which Turkish authorities hold responsible for the coup attempt of 2016, may be able to use international mechanisms on order to reclaim some of the more than YTL 80 billion worth of assets confiscated by the Turkish government in the wake of the coup.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://ahvalnews.com/gulen-movement/belgium-firm-sue-turkey-over-gulen-linked-assets" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ahval News</a>, 12 March 2018, dayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-28381242941254322202018-03-12T23:54:00.000-07:002018-03-15T01:24:59.190-07:00Erdogan is transforming Turkey into a totalitarian prison<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Washington Post Editorial Board</b></span><br />
<br />
In Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the tweet has been turned into a crime, and a troubled democracy is being turned into a dictatorship. Gradually but inexorably, a nation that once aspired to be an exemplar of enlightened moderation is being transformed by Mr. Erdogan into a dreary totalitarian prison. In the latest setback, last week, 23 journalists were sentenced to prison for between two and seven years on patently ridiculous charges that they were members of a terrorist organization and had tweeted about it. Two others were convicted on lesser charges of supporting a terrorist organization.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Mr. Erdogan, the target of a failed coup attempt in July 2016, has embarked on a campaign of repression against perceived enemies in the press, government, academia and law enforcement, among other pillars of Turkish society. More than 60,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 forced from their jobs. Mr. Erdogan’s prime targets are the perceived followers of the opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania. Mr. Erdogan claims Mr. Gulen — once his ally in Turkish politics — had incited the coup attempt, hence the charge of a “terrorist organization.” Mr. Gulen denies it.<br />
<br />
Turkey once had a robust, independent press, but Mr. Erdogan has waged a multifront campaign: closing media outlets, forcing others into new ownership, and using friendly judges and prosecutors. In the latest cases, some reporters and editors were convicted for what they said on Twitter. A lawyer representing two journalists, Baris Topuk, said at an earlier hearing: “In our opinion, the name of the organization in which the defendants are accused of being members should be TTO: Tweetist Terrorist Organization. There are no weapons or bombs in the case, only news articles and tweets.” Ali Akkus, who was news editor of the now-defunct <i>Zaman</i> daily, had said on Twitter, “No dictator can silence the press.” The use of the word “dictator” was singled out by a prosecutor in the charges against him. Mr. Akkus received a sentence of seven years and six months in prison.<br />
<br />
Cuma Ulus, the editor of the daily <i>Millet</i>, got the same sentence and declared earlier during the proceedings: “I have been a journalist for 21 years. I stood against terrorism and violence, [and] defended expression of freedom during all my life.” In the indictment, prosecutors cited three tweets and 22 retweets, accusing him of stirring up frenzy against the government.<br />
<br />
Separately, 17 current and former writers, cartoonists and executives from the Cumhuriyet newspaper are also on trial. Mr. Erdogan is reportedly planning an assault on Internet broadcasting and free expression online, as well.<br />
<br />
The show trials underscore how far Turkey has fallen from Western norms of democracy, human rights and rule of law. Mr. Erdogan is happily marching alongside Russia, China, Egypt, Cuba and others where legitimacy to rule rests on coercion and thought control. Mr. Erdogan’s dictatorship must be called out for what it is. Even if he covers his ears, the United States and other nations must protest, and loudly.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/erdogan-is-transforming-turkey-into-a-totalitarian-prison/2018/03/11/19a4cde8-23c9-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>, 11 March 2018, dayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-63721114195758459242018-03-11T23:51:00.000-07:002018-03-15T01:24:59.469-07:00Opposition does not believe Gulen movement was behind the coup attemptDr. Kadir Akyuz of University of Bridgeport, CT, USA has carried out a poll to find out who the general public believe was behind the bloody coup attempt in July 2915. According to his results, opposition does not believe the Gulen movement but it was conspired by the “deadly combo” of Tayyip Erdogan and Dogu Perincek.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
1,899 people voted in poll that Dr. Akyuz claims enough to represent to be able to make comments on the results. Dr. Akyuz asked this question:<br />
<br />
July 15 is a bloody conspiracy staged by (a) Tayyip Erdogan, (b) The [Gulen] Movement, (c) Dogu Perincek, (d) Tayyip Erdogan and Dogu Perincek.<br />
<br />
Here is Dr. Akyuz’s <a href="https://twitter.com/kadirakyuz54/status/972474934344781825?s=21" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">his own analysis</a> of the poll.<br />
<br />
“The poll results about the 15 July coup have just arrived. I’m going to interpret this one-question poll. Of course, two minds are better than one, therefore I look forward to your valuable comments.<br />
<br />
“For polls to accurately represent a target audience, it is important for there to be a high level of participation from the target audience. In this regard, while the number of participants is high enough, it should be put into consideration that I do not have many AKP-supporter followers. However, apart from AKP-supporters, I have enough followers from every segment of society. It’s not that I don’t have many AKP-supporter followers because I try to exclude them, rather it is because they can’t stand my content.<br />
<br />
However, I did not want to measure the opinions of AKP-supporters, whose only opinions come from the regime-controlled mainstream Turkish media anyway; I wanted to see what the opposition supporters think. Therefore, I could say my sampling in this poll is pretty reliable.<br />
<br />
In my opinion, even more important than the distribution of the results of my poll is that the poll asked about the “bloody conspiracy of July 15” and not one person commented saying “that was a coup, not a conspiracy.” Therefore, it could be said that all of the participants agree that “it was a conspiracy.”<br />
<br />
And who is the architect of this bloody plot? In spite of the oppression, imprisonments, intimidation and fascism of the Turkish regime, 89% of the opposition considers Tayyip Erdogan as the architect of this bloody plot! But as you will see from the results, they see it in a very interesting way!<br />
<br />
Despite the fact that they knew Erdogan ruled Turkey by himself, even before July 15, the option that only had Erdogan’s name was chosen by 25% while his name with Perinçek’s was chosen by 64%. Very intriguing…<br />
<br />
It’s intriguing because the opposition, which gives an impression of feeling immense hatred towards Erdogan, instead of choosing the first correct-sounding answer on the poll (which usually has a higher chance of being clicked on by poll participants) instead chose the last option of “RTE and Perinçek” together, showing they were clicking on their answer consciously.<br />
<br />
This means: Erdogan may politically be, both in terms of party and country leadership, a strong one-man ruler. But even he couldn’t have devise this bloody plot alone. With the support of Perinçek and his followers (including the Russian factor), this bloody conspiracy has been made! This is what the poll results show by a great percentage.<br />
<br />
Of course the same is true in terms of Dogu Perinçek. Perinçek’s name alone was selected by only 3%. You’ve all probably heard the following before: “Who the heck is Perinçek, he only has a tiny percentage of people’s votes in elections, stop exaggerating his influence.” Therefore the poll participants don’t think he alone could have devised July 15.<br />
<br />
But when his name is next to Erdogan’s name, the belief that he conspired with Erdogan to plot July 15 is at 64%. So people are saying, he is nothing on his own, but in terms of the balance of powers, he could be “deadly combo” with Erdogan.<br />
<br />
As for the “Hizmet Movement” option on the poll. Despite the fact that Erdogan and Turkish media have pointed at Hizmet as the sole and undisputed perpetrator of July 15, only 8% have chosen it. Which means:<br />
<br />
Despite the fact that the hizmet movement received harsh criticisms (sometimes to the level of hatred) from all sects of Turkish society for allegedly being in “cooperation, alliance” etc. with AKP until the December 17-25 graft operations, the Turkish regime was not able to convince the opposition that it was behind July 15.<br />
<br />
While this is good news on the one hand for the Hizmet Movement in terms of convincing people of their innocence, it also means that Erdogan and Perincek, who can’t be convincing, will become more atrocious towards the movement.<br />
<br />
Fake news, such as the assassination of Sümeyye (Erdogan’s daughter) by the movement and the assassination of Russian Ambassador Karlov, will continue to be published because they have no other chance! They have no chance but produce fake news. Pro-Erdogan media has no buyer among the opposition but it is doing it job to manipulate Erdogan-supporters’ perseption.<br />
<br />
In result, July 15th coup attempt may be strongly regarded by the opposition as Erdogan and Perincek’s conspiracy! This is, of course, despite the opposition’s suspicion, resentment, and sometimes even hatred, towards the Hizmet Movement.”<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="http://hizmetnews.com/24070/opposition-not-believe-gulen-movement-behind-coup-attempt/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hizmet News</a>, 11 March 2018, SundayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-23417227673042720062018-03-10T22:33:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.045-07:00AfSV Condemns Turkish Teacher’s Death Under Torture Despite Official InnocenceGokhan Acikkollu, a 42-year-old history teacher in Turkey, was dismissed from his job and was detained on baseless charges in the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. On August 5, 2016, he died as a result of 13 days of torture and abuse under police custody. Recently on February 27, 2018, it was revealed that he was actually reinstated to his job and that charges against him were dropped. Acikkollu’s life was horrifically taken away solely on the basis of a fabricated evidence. The Alliance for Shared Values condemns this atrocious incident as well as the hundreds of ongoing cases of indictments based on false evidence that result in torture.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The Acikkollu incident is just one example of the plight of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens being unjustly held in prisons. According to Turkish prosecutors, 11,500 were mistakenly investigated based on false evidence as of December 27, 2017. Detainees face torture and ill treatment without being officially interrogated and are not able to find out the exact charges against them. Amnesty International has reported that “police held detainees in stress positions, denied them food, water and medical treatment, verbally abused and threatened them and subjected them to beatings and torture, including rape and sexual assault.”<br />
<br />
We urge the international community to demand the Turkish government halt the State of Emergency and bring an end to the unlawful torture and ill treatment of innocent people.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="http://afsv.org/afsv-condemns-turkish-teachers-death-under-torture-despite-official-innocence" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AfSV.org</a>, 2 March 2018, Friday<br />
<br />
<i><b>Related</b></i><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2018/02/turkish-teacher-tortured-to-death.html" target="_blank">Teacher tortured to death by Turkish police found innocent, reinstated to job</a></li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-42213845671947865492018-03-10T00:55:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.289-07:00Theology professor Suat Yildirim says Diyanet removed his articles from Islamic EncyclopediaThe Islamic theologian Suat Yildirim has said the articles he wrote for Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate’s (Diyanet) Islamic Encyclopedia have been removed.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Yildirim, known for his ties to the Gulen movement, said in a column for the TR724 online news portal on March 8 that his contribution to the Encyclopedia has been removed.<br />
<br />
“There are about 20 sections that I personally authored. If one or two needed editing, it would have been fine to do so as long as the [original] author’s name is indicated. However, when they removed all the sections that I wrote from the website, it is obvious that this is not a scientific approach. It is rather personal,” Yildirim said.<br />
<br />
Diyanet published its 44-volume Islamic Encyclopedia which included entries from over 2,000 scholars, as part of a prolonged project, in early 2014. President [then PM] Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well as several cabinet ministers attended an Istanbul ceremony to announce the encyclopedia’s publication.<br />
<br />
Ayhan Tekines, another Gulen-linked theology professor, said early February that Diyanet had removed his articles alike.<br />
<br />
Tekines said the offer to contribute to the encyclopedia had been made by the Diyanet researchers and that he had penned 19 articles about various topics including hadith concepts, book introductions and prophetic medicine.<br />
<br />
Turkish government accuses Fethullah Gulen and his movement of masterminding the July 15, 2016 failed coup while the cleric denies involvement.<br />
<br />
Media reported earlier that Turkey’s Education Ministry decided to destroy at least 216,233 copies of math and science textbooks published by publishing houses affiliated with the movement.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Osman Budak told the Sözcü daily in late 2016: “A math textbook was banned just because it features Gülen’s initials in a practice question that reads: ‘… from point F to point G …’. It has become a paranoia. Public money is being squandered.”<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://turkeypurge.com/theology-professor-suat-yildirim-says-diyanet-removed-articles-islamic-encyclopedia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkey Purge</a>, 10 March 2018, SaturdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-64694250862600105562018-03-09T23:38:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.493-07:00Australian Relief Organisation awarded “Letter of Appreciation” by the Cambodian Ministry of Rural DevelopmentAustralian Relief Organisation (ARO) has been recently awarded a “Letter of Appreciation” by the Cambodian Ministry of Rural Development. ARO, with the donation supports, has established water wells in Cambodia that now provide drinkable water to over 25,000 locals on a daily basis.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
ARO’s programs also included orphanage programs along with yearly food pack and dinner appeals to the needy. Since 2013, ARO’s partner in Cambodia, Mekong Charity, has played a crucial role in delivering humanitarian programs. ARO appreciates Mekong Charity’s role and shares credit with it. We look forward to your ongoing support towards our future charitable programs.<br />
<br />
ARO needs donations to be able to continue its humanitarian activities in Cambodia. ARO may be reached at <a href="https://aro.org.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://aro.org.au/</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7xdBcGRFwyOtWQ3itdK-xWGo-Et7Wg7EUaX9RMmVsqZjWbtQa_FIYLrdqB6ZhbU6wOmEDYxgpbqsArMv5KmvhI72nf6pwwe6zzb04WrEtwooNn4j6UNVL5eRCitFqEIsPDt79ExTKYL4/s1600/ARO-Cambodia-letter-appreciation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Australian-relief-Cambodia" border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="647" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7xdBcGRFwyOtWQ3itdK-xWGo-Et7Wg7EUaX9RMmVsqZjWbtQa_FIYLrdqB6ZhbU6wOmEDYxgpbqsArMv5KmvhI72nf6pwwe6zzb04WrEtwooNn4j6UNVL5eRCitFqEIsPDt79ExTKYL4/s400/ARO-Cambodia-letter-appreciation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Published on <b></b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/AustralianReliefOrganisation/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1419967254789868">ARO Facebook Page</a>, 9 March 2018, Friday<br />
<br />
<i><b>Related</b></i><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2018/01/aro-healthcare-alliance-cambodia-govt.html" target="_blank">ARO’s healthcare alliance with Cambodian Government agencies</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/search/label/Cambodia" target="_blank">More on Cambodia</a></li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-50123275723684959592018-03-09T23:31:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.394-07:00Tentacles of Turkey’s growing autocracy reach ThailandTurkish democracy developed too rapidly in the early years of this century,” says a Bangkok-based technology expert from Istanbul, who wishes to be known only as Erdem, as he is one of thousands of expat Turks around the world denied their civil rights by the autocratic regime of President Recep Erdogan.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Elections were held. The media was independent. Corruption became less and less. People had to behave.”</blockquote>
<br />
After coming to power in 2002, Erdogan’s populist regime brought a measure of much-craved sociopolitical stability to the almost entirely Muslim country. But too good to be true, populist rule has given way to growing corruption in a system lacking mature mechanisms for monitoring accumulation of power. An enthusiastic supporter of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen’s Hizmet (“Service”) movement, which funds a large network of schools in Turkey, Erdem lauds its founder for standing up to the power gorging now infecting the ruling AK Parti (AKP). “After the 2010 election, Erdogan and the AKP failed to politicise the Gulen movement, a civilian Islamic phenomenon,” he says.<br />
<br />
Power-hungry forces within the AKP reached out to Gulen, intent on tapping this source of mass political support. When the tactic failed, Gulen supporters came to be seen as enemies of the state. “The Turkish government is targeting people they even just suspect of having connections with the Gulen movement. They have lists. In the history of Turkey, there’s been no party like the AKP. This is the most dangerous phase in history of the Turkish republic.<br />
<br />
Multiple accusations of graft among AKP higher-ups are exemplified by the case of Reza Zarrab, an incarcerated former gold trader and associate of Erdogan who recently gave evidence before a US court that Turkey’s president is corrupt.<br />
<br />
The AKP’s one-time secular rival for hearts and minds, the Republican People’s Party, had a similar strategy to woo Islamic institutions, says Erdem, although with the opposite intention of muting the appeal of political Islam. “The Kemalists hate the AKP more than they hate civilian Islam,” he says of the supporters inspired by the legacy of modern Turkey’s founder and first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.<br />
<br />
In the absence of electoral success, secular elements turned to direct military intervention, a pattern that has plagued the Turkish republic throughout its century of existence. When an attempted military coup ended in bloody failure in the summer of 2016, the AKP pounced on the opportunity to cement their power. As part of the crackdown, Ankara cancelled around 50,000 passports to prevent dissidents leaving the country, a move that saw Interpol halt cooperation with Ankara over suspicion that political retribution was taking place.<br />
<br />
With AKP power swelling, late last year the Turkish president invoked the legacy of Ataturk, or “father Turk”, who forged a modern nation-state and rule of law from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire.<br />
<br />
Yet while Ataturk laudably focused on establishing a system minimizing corruption and setting up a democracy, the AKP’s tactics more resemble the increasingly fake democracy of Hun Sen’s Cambodia, marked by an atmosphere of fear used to target the opposition, civil society groups and media freedoms.<br />
<br />
Friends and colleagues of Erdem in Malaysia, Myanmar and Pakistan have had their lives turned upside down. A call from a Yangon Airport Immigration official to a Turkish diplomat led to the detainment and forcible return to Turkey of someone Erdem calls “a good man who loved his family and supported Gulen”. In Pakistan, a Turkish citizen was kidnapped from his home by a dozen masked men and forcibly returned to a homeland, of which he has “inside knowledge, according to Erdem.<br />
<br />
Closer to home, a Turkish colleague had this to say about a heart-wrenching departure: “It’s very difficult to say that I had to leave Thailand. I have been living with this beautiful country’s great people for six years. I love Thailand, I love Thai people; my life’s greatest times were in Thailand. But due to Turkish Embassies’ actions against their own citizens all over the world, including Thailand, I had to leave Thailand with my husband. I was crying at the airport due to my feelings towards this country. I don’t want to separate from my friends. Sorry not to say goodbye to you because this was the urgent case. I will never lose my hope that these hard days will pass over.”<br />
<br />
In a Bangkok café, as his three children sample board games, Erdem details how public servants of a latter-day sultan pressured his family as well, while stopping short of personally blaming Erdogan for Turkey’s current woes, saying, “You cannot know his heart.<br />
<br />
“There was a document from the Turkish embassy that I needed in order to work here. My friends told me, ‘Don’t give them your passport.’ But an embassy official still told me, ‘You need to go back to Turkey.’ Then he cleared his throat and said with a straight face, ‘Your passport has been cancelled. You will be issued only once you return to Turkey.’ When I asked him why, he just said ‘I don’t know. Only in Turkey can these decisions be made.”<br />
<br />
“‘What will happen to me?’ I asked. He just said, ‘I don’t know.’”<br />
<br />
The attempted coup was to an extent an “inside job”, says Erdem, enabling AKP elements to flush out rivals. The ensuing state of emergency has since been extended six times by an elected dictatorship that finds it increasingly difficult to cloak itself in the image of Islamic justice and anti-corruption that brought the party to power.<br />
<br />
“Erdogan made a rule that you cannot be president more than twice, then broke his own rule,” says Erdem.<br />
<br />
He hopes that common sense and the Turkish Republic’s founding ideals will eventually override the extremism whose tentacles are now stretching across the world to snatch Turks from homes overseas.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30340450" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Nation</a>, 8 March 2018, ThursdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-44030728771375653172018-03-08T23:27:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.315-07:00Turkish gov’t jailed not only journalist Karaca, but also his lawyers and the judges who ruled to release himThe trial of Turkish journalist Hidayet Karaca (55) has already taken its place in judicial history because not only has he been persecuted by the Turkish government led by autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but also both his lawyers and the judges who ruled to release him from jail have been imprisoned.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Hidayet Karaca, Ph.D., is an experienced Turkish broadcaster who also served for years as chairman of the board of directors of a number of media associations such as the Television Broadcasters Association and Television Audience Measurement (TİAK). After serving as bureau chief of the Zaman daily in İzmir and Ankara, he was transferred to the Samanyolu Broadcasting Group in 1999 and was executive director of the group for 17 years.<br />
<br />
However, he was taken into custody by police officers who raided the television studio where he was working on December 14, 2014. He has been deprived of his freedom for about four years. Karaca was sentenced to 31 years’ imprisonment in one trial. He is also being tried in another another case on almost identical charges in which the prosecutor has demanded an aggravated life sentence.<br />
<br />
“I am defending myself under very difficult circumstances. Some of my lawyers have left, some of them were arrested. I could not even find a lawyer to write a petition for me,” Karaca said during a hearing in August 2016.<br />
<br />
As mentioned in his defence before the court, Karaca’s lawyers were arrested. The sentence demanded by a prosecutor for one of these lawyers, who was forced to testify against his client Karaca, was reduced from 10 years, six months to five years, 10 months after the lawyer agreed to cooperate despite the fact that it was contrary to the law. Since the lawyer had to state that they had visited US-based Turkish-Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, Karaca was sentenced to 31 years in prison.<br />
<br />
It would be better to take a look at the first of the cases in which Karaca was tried and sentenced. Karaca has described this trial as President Erdoğan’s personal revenge for a corruption investigation on December 17-25, 2013 that implicated himself, his family members and several ministers of his cabinet.<br />
<br />
The tragic story of Karaca started with an operation conducted by Turkish anti-terror police teams against an al-Qaeda-linked radical Islamist group in İstanbul on January 22, 2010. Then-Director General for Public Security Oguz Kağan Köksal, who was later elected as a Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy and assigned as the chairperson of the Interior Affairs Commission in Parliament, had ordered this operation. The deputy chairman of the Department of Police Intelligence, Hüseyin Namal, who is also known for his closeness to the AKP, had requested permission for the operation.<br />
<br />
An official authorisation request for the operation said, “In order to unravel the Mehmet Doğan Group, which is a pro-al-Qaeda terrorist organization, and to ensure its members are arrested with criminal evidence, in coordination with our directorate …”<br />
<br />
Then-İstanbul Governor Muhammer Güler had made a public announcement about the police operation at a press conference in İstanbul. Güler, who was elected as a deputy in the June 12, 2011 elections to the ranks of the ruling AKP and named interior minister, had said, “On January 22, 2010, a police operation was carried out against a terrorist organization with a radical religious stance, namely the al-Qaeda terror organization.”<br />
<br />
Güler was not content with an abstract al-Qaeda accusation and shared details of the group, saying that “it was determined that the group is also related to Louai Sakka, who is in charge of al-Qaeda in Europe, Turkey and Syria, and Habip Aktaş, who had previously been involved in bombing incidents on November 15-20, 2003 and was subsequently killed in Iraq.”<br />
<br />
Governor Güler argued that the suspects were also connected to the bombers of a synagogue, the British Consulate General and the HSBC building in İstanbul.<br />
<br />
Turkish media covered the operation extensively. Yiğit Bulut, President Erdoğan’s chief adviser and a member of the board of directors of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, had made a most striking broadcast about the al-Qaeda linked radical terror gorup on Habertürk television, of which he was in charge. He featured video footage allegedly belonging to suspect Mehmet Doğan, the leader of the Tahşiyeciler group. In the video Doğan was praising al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. He also suggested that Muslims all over the world should recognize the authority of bin Laden. Bulut concluded his coverage about Doğan and Tahsiyeciler by saying that “Islam must be saved from the members of al-Qaeda.”<br />
<br />
İstanbul’s 11th High Criminal Court arrested Doğan and other members of the radical Tahşiyeciler group on January 26, 2010.<br />
<br />
President Erdoğan, who succeeded in redesigning the entire judiciary to cover up corruption scandals implicating him and his close circle in December 2013, wanted to take revenge by reversing the case opened against the al-Qaeda-linked Tahşiyeciler group. An investigation into the police chiefs who conducted the operation and some media executives who were allegedly affiliated with the Gülen movement was opened in İstanbul. The prosecutor’s office claimed the police officers and journalists conspired against the Tahşiyeciler group without even waiting for the outcome of their trial.<br />
<br />
Police detained a number of people on December 14, 2014. Among the detainees were journalists Hidayet Karaca and Ekrem Dumanlı, who was editor-in-chief of the now-closed Zaman daily, which used to be the most highly circulated daily in Turkey. Karaca was arrested by an İstanbul court designed by the Erdoğan regime, Dumanlı was released by the same court in the wake of emotional reactions from the public over the birth of his baby on the same day.<br />
<br />
In order to justify this fabricated case, the release of the arrested members of the Tahşiyeciler group was accomplished through heavy pressure on the judiciary. However, the release of these suspects could be achieved only after a year. When the members of Tahşiyeciler were eventually acquitted by the redesigned judiciary on December 15, 2015, Karaca and the police chiefs had already been in prison for over a year.<br />
<br />
Despite reports not only by police intelligence but also by the intelligence department of the Chief of General Staff stating that the Tahşiyeciler group was linked to al-Qaeda, all members of the group were acquitted by the court. The police officers who had carried out the operation upon the orders of their superiors, who were put in much more important positions by the AKP, were claimed to be guilty.<br />
<br />
Adding media executives to this case was a legal scandal. Yet, despite the harsh coverage by Habertürk, CNN Türk, the Hürriyet daily and other media organs about the Tahşiyeciler investigation and police operation, the executives of these media organs were not even investigated.<br />
<br />
The headline of a front page story in Hürriyet on January 26, 2010 was “The former author of the ‘Vakit’ daily is the mastermind of al-Qaeda.” The lead headline of Hürriyet on January 27, 2010 was ‘Sacrifice campaign with Kalashnikovs.” The report said that “a group of 57 al-Qaeda militants collected $130 per sacrifice and sent the money to Afghanistan.”<br />
<br />
The Radikal daily reported the event with the headline “Al-Qaeda’s structure was solved in Turkey.” The Star daily used the headline “Al-Qaeda is ready to rob a bank to buy a house.” The Sabah daily said, “They collected money for al-Qaeda under the name of ‘sacrifice donation’” in its January 27, 2010 edition.<br />
<br />
In addition to Karaca, Yurt Atayün, the former director of the counterterrorism branch of the İstanbul Police Department, was sentenced to 25 years, six months in prison. The former director of the intelligence branch of the İstanbul Police Department was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The other 23 defendants, who were former police officers in charge of intelligence and terrorism operations at the İstanbul Police Department, received various sentences of nine years in prison and up.<br />
<br />
Although it is against the law to be tried twice for the same offense, Karaca is standing trial in another case in an Ankara court on the same charges. Despite the ruling in İstanbul on charges of establishing and managing an armed terrorist organization, the trial at Ankara’s 4th High Criminal Court is still continuing.<br />
<br />
Objections to being tried twice for the same offense have not been taken into consideration during Karaca’s trial. Additional charges have been filed for Karaca, who was already sentenced to 31 years, because of two lines in a scene from a TV series broadcast on one of the six TV channels he directed. The new accusation is that he attempted to overthrow the government.<br />
<br />
In the second indictment, which was accepted by the court on July 22, 2016, just a week after the controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Karaca was accused of attempting to overthrow Turkish government. However, he has been detained since December 14, 2014 and could not even meet with his lawyers. No one can answer the question “How can a person under these conditions organize a military coup?”<br />
<br />
Karaca’s prosecution has been an important indicator for Turkey, which is ranked 101st among 113 countries in the Rule of Law Index. Today, Turkey is a country where the number of journalists who are being prosecuted exceeds the total number of journalists being tried in the rest of the world. But Karaca’s case has another peculiarity: Two judges who had ruled for his release were also arrested. The Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) has threatened other judges over giving similar decisions with facing the same consequences.<br />
<br />
Journalist Karaca has been tried in a political climate in which he has even been unable to find a lawyer to write a legal petition for him and all the judges have been threatened. Moreover, he has been tried in two separate courts on the same charges. One of the sentences he received is now on the agenda of the Supereme Court of Appeals; the other trial has not yet been concluded. But everyone already knows the likely decision under these circumstances.<br />
<br />
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/updated-list/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">240 journalists and media workers were in jail</a> as of February 22, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison, 205 were under arrest pending trial, while only 35 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 140 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.<br />
<br />
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down more than 180 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-govt-jailed-not-only-journalist-karaca-but-also-his-lawyers-and-the-judges-who-ruled-to-release-him/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Turkey Purge</a>, 7 March 2018, Wednesday<br />
<br />
<i><b>Related</b></i><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/12/tahsiyeciler-pennsylvania.html" target="_blank">From al-Qaeda to Amsterdam, from İstanbul to Pennsylvania</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/12/tahsiye-indictment-with-no-evidence.html" target="_blank">Indictment with no solid evidence marks first hearing in Tahşiyeciler trial</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/09/tahsiye-indictment-fictitious.html" target="_blank">Accusations, references to terror organization in Tahşiye indictment are fictitious</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/09/tahsiye-indictment-false-claims.html" target="_blank">Tahşiye indictment dismissed as ludicrous, full of false claims</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/09/indictment-for-tahsiye-contradictions.html" target="_blank">Newly prepared indictment for Tahşiye probe full of contradictions</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2014/12/govt-tries-to-frame-hizmet-with-secret.html" target="_blank">Gov’t tries to frame Hizmet with secret statements from shady sources</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2014/12/questions-and-answers-in-tahsiye-group.html" target="_blank">Questions and answers in Tahşiye group debate</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2014/12/behind-scenes-of-clampdown-on-press.html" target="_blank">Behind the scenes of Tahşiyeciler setup as pretext for clampdown on free press</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/10/suspicions-tahsiye-indictment.html" target="_blank">Unusually similar testimonies raise suspicions over legality of Tahşiye indictment</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/01/turkish-army-profiled-tahsiyeciler.html" target="_blank">Turkish army profiled Tahşiyeciler as serving al-Qaeda</a></li>
<li><a href="http://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2015/01/intelligence-army-police-tahsiyeciler.html" target="_blank">Turkish intelligence and national police all investigated ‘Tahşiyeciler'</a></li>
<li><a href="https://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2017/11/journalist-karaca-sentenced-to-31-years.html" target="_blank">Journalist Karaca sentenced to 31 years for slandering al-Qaeda-affiliated group</a></li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-71280613623515762092018-03-07T23:18:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.542-07:00Journalist Gültaşlı: European institutions are ‘cherry-picking’ imprisoned journalists in Turkey“It is getting increasingly clear that European institutions are ‘cherry-picking’ the imprisoned journalists in Turkey for whom they want to protest,” wrote journalist Selçuk Gültaşlı, who was Brussels bureau chief for the Turkish Zaman newspaper, on the Brussels-based online news website euobserver.com on Tuesday.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“There are several groups of jailed journalists – and European reaction differs depending on which category you fall in,” Gültaşlı said in his article and continued: “If you are European or Turkish-origin European journalist, the reaction is of epic proportions, followed by open (or secret) meetings with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to ensure their release. Foreign ministers and even former prime ministers are involved in these dirty deals. This form of ‘hostage-taking’ has generally paid off.”<br />
<br />
Stating that “The reaction for leftist, liberal or secular journalists is at a lower pitch, but still noteworthy. There are no European ministers’ visits to Turkey to get them freed but, nevertheless, European institutions make a lot noise,” Gültaşlı wrote that “The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the last resort for justice in Turkey, take their cases as a matter of priority.”<br />
<br />
Pointing to Deniz Yücel and French journalist Loup Bureau as good examples of the first category, Gültaşlı stated that “Yücel should have never been imprisoned in the first place and it is very good that he is free at last. However, German media reported that it took two secret meetings between German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel and Erdogan to set him free. We do not yet exactly know what the final ‘price tag’ was for his freedom.”<br />
<br />
Classifying the Altan brothers and Şahin Alpay in the second category, Gültaşlı reminded that “The Turkish Constitutional Court recently ruled that Mehmet Altan and Alpay should be released. However, in an unprecedented disrespect for the highest judicial authority and blatant breach of the constitution, local courts refused to implement the ruling. Altan and Alpay are respected, left-leaning liberals. Their cases were taken by the ECtHR as a matter of priority.”<br />
<br />
“There is a third group nobody cares about and they are my colleagues from Zaman, the so-called ‘Gulenist’ journalists,” said Gültaşlı. The Zaman daily was seized by the Erdoğan government on March 4, 2016 and later closed by government decree in July of the same year.<br />
<br />
“The other group in this class is the Kurdish reporters,” Gültaşlı said, and added: “Erdoğan squarely blames the Gülen movement as the sole perpetrator for the failed coup attempt of 2016 without convincing proof (most in Brussels believe that Gülenists were involved, but it was not Gülen who ordered the coup). Despite the lack of compelling evidence, the European institutions are careful not to anger Erdoğan, meticulously omitting references to the movement in their reports and statements.”<br />
<br />
“At the beginning of February, the ECtHR refused the application of Mustafa Ünal, Zaman’s former Ankara bureau chief,” Gültaşlı reminded and added that “Ünal has been in jail for the past 19 months and the evidence presented in the indictment comprises nothing but his articles. Ünal is being tried in the same case with Alpay, and exactly with the same indictment, full of the same charges. Yet the court decided to take up Alpay’s application while rejecting Ünal’s.”<br />
<br />
Gültaşlı wrote that “Vincent Berger, Ünal’s French lawyer in Paris, told me recently he was shocked and the court decision was ‘a real shame and a clear discrimination.’ Most disturbing of all, Berger said, the decision was a dangerous message to Ankara – implying that the government could do whatever it wants with this group of journalists.”<br />
<br />
“The ECtHR has still not responded my question about why the court took two different decisions in the same case,” said Gültaşlı, underlining the fact that the ECtHR also rejected an application from Zaman, which was seeking compensation for damages suffered.<br />
<br />
“The European Parliament, the most outspoken critic among the EU institutions, adopted a resolution in early February condemning Erdoğan’s despotic drift. While being quite vocal on media freedom, the report mentioned only Cumhuriyet daily whose four reporters are still behind bars,” Gültaşlı wrote, and continued: “According to the Stockholm Centre for Freedom, an NGO created by exiled Turkish journalists, out of 205 imprisoned journalists, 124 of them are either from Zaman or Gülen-affiliated media outlets. Yet, there was not a single reference to this in the European parliament’s report.”<br />
<br />
Gültaşlı concluded his article on euobersver.com by saying that “My colleagues are discriminated against badly enough by Turkish authorities. They do not deserve to be further discriminated against by the European institutions.”<br />
<br />
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 240 journalists and media workers were in jail as of February 22, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison, 205 were under arrest pending trial, while only 35 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 140 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.<br />
<br />
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down more than 180 media outlets after the controversial coup attempt.<br />
<br />
Published on <a href="https://stockholmcf.org/journalist-gultasli-european-institutions-are-cherry-picking-imprisoned-journalists-in-turkey/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stockholm Centre for Freedom</a>, 7 March 2018, Wednesday<br />
<br />
<b><i>Related</i></b><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hizmetmovement.blogspot.com/2018/03/turkey-zaman-journalists-in-jail.html" target="_blank">Turkey and the “forgotten” Zaman journalists in jail</a></li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6649642963594784854.post-44252430224088063532018-03-06T23:07:00.000-08:002018-03-15T01:24:59.340-07:00Hizmet’s Relations with Other Muslim Communities in the United StatesHizmet is a faith-inspired civil society movement that started in Turkey under the inspiration of Turkish Sunni scholar Fethullah Gulen in the late 1960s. The organization adopts volunteerism for its core membership; thus, the prime objective of the Hizmet volunteers is to create a culture of coexistence within universal and humanist values for everyone. “Hizmet, as a civil society movement, operates with a strictly public character. It is not an organ or an affiliate of a government program, political party or agenda.”[1]<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Hizmet’s relations with Muslim communities in America is the central subject matter of this article. It involves the interactions between the Hizmet institutions (Rumi Forum, Pacifica Institute, Gulen Institute and the like) and the organizations formed by other Muslim communities such as ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), ISCA (Islamic Supreme Council of America), MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council), NASIMCO (North American Shia Ithna – Asheri Muslim Communities Organization). Hizmet is relatively new in the United States compared to other Muslim communities as explained below. Development of the relations between the Hizmet movement and other Muslim communities is not only of utmost importance for the future of Islam in America but also for the integration of the Hizmet volunteers to the American society. This paper builds on certain observations, however does not generalize its observations to every Hizmet institutions in the United States.<br />
<br />
Undeniably for more than 40 years, Hizmet as a civic movement has endured numerous tribulations and false accusations in Turkey. However, none of those impacted its volunteers more than the political oppression that has been targeting the movement disproportionately for the last few years. Indeed, the secular nature of the Turkish Republic has been deteriorating gradually since Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan emerged as a political power as the head of the Justice and Development Party since 2002. In 2004, the National Security Council’s decision[2] signed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, then Prime Minister Erdogan, and the members of his cabinet openly recommended state authorities to take action against the Gulen-inspired institutions within and outside the country. Following the corruption scandal in 2013, the state repression reached its climax and transformed into an all-out war against the movement and its activities on a global scale. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and tens of thousands of people have been detained and arrested in the government purge.[3] Much of this can be attributed to the elusive nature of politics and leaders’ tendency to fabricate enemies to consolidate power over their domestic constituents in times of difficulty. Nonetheless, the dramatic turn of events also urges the members of the movement to constructively reflect on and reassess the relations of the Hizmet movement with other communities. Driven by such a desire, following paragraphs focus on a particular dimension of these relations and analyze the relationships between the Hizmet Movement and other Muslim groups in the United States. This document also provides suggestions on how these highly critical relations can be improved. A brief history of Islam and Muslim communities in America will be presented before our observations are put forward in the last section of this white paper.<br />
<br />
Islam has a long but little-known history in the U.S. Most of the early Muslims arrived in America were captives. “Muslim slaves were brought involuntarily to this country and were forcibly kept from practicing their religion.”[4] Allan D. Austin maintains that ten percent of the slaves exported to the colonies were Muslims including the members of the Ulama (Muslim Scholars), Fuqaha (Muslim Jurists) as well as ordinary Muslim individuals.[5] “Many of their descendants (slaves) began to rediscover Islam in the early twentieth century and were joined by an increasing number of Muslim immigrants after the Immigration and Nationality Act ended racial quotas on immigration in 1965. White converts joined them throughout the years.”[6] According to Pew Forum on Public Religion Life, 72 percent of Muslims in America today are immigrants or “second generation,” and Muslims only make up one percent of the general population.[7]<br />
<br />
Muslims are perhaps the most racially diverse group in America; such diversity is also reflected in ways in which Islam is practiced in the United States. A large number of communities including mainstream (Sunni and Shia groups) and non-mainstream groups (Baha’is and Ahmadis, etc.) or movements such as Salafists and Sufis are represented in the United States. There is often little collaboration and awareness toward one another among these groups. Hizmet’s history in the United States started with Fethullah Gulen’s trip to America in 1999 for medical treatment. Since then, Hizmet has had a presence in the United States mainly through its educational activities and interfaith work. With the growing state oppression over the movement in Turkey, an increasing number of people who sympathize with the movement is forced to leave for or seek refuge in the Western countries, including the United States.<br />
<br />
An article published in the Economist in 2012 reported that “Islam in America has flourished and the number of mosques has nearly doubled over the past decade, rising from 1209 in 2000 to 2106 in 2011.” Despite this growth, there seems to be some level of disconnection between the Hizmet and the other Muslim communities in the United States. It should be acknowledged that some volunteers or institutions of the Hizmet movement have already achieved a good level of cooperation with other Muslim communities in certain places; nevertheless, such good examples are only local and very limited.<br />
<br />
Shedding light on the dark side of the issue, the factors that weaken the relations between the Hizmet Movement and these communities are manifold. First of all, as a relatively new Muslim community, the Hizmet movement is not very familiar with the characteristics, history, problems, and sensitivities of other Muslim groups in America. Secondly, participants of the movement tend to project their local and historical fears onto its relations with other Muslim communities in the United States. In that regard, its restrained approach toward the political Islamist parties in Turkey has immensely impacted its relations with other American Muslims in the post-9/11 era.<br />
<br />
Third, the current policy of the Turkish state toward the Hizmet poses further challenges to the ties between Hizmet and other Muslim communities. American Muslims, who in general sympathize with political Islamist parties including the Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, is having a difficult time in believing in the persecution inflicted upon the members of the Hizmet movement in Turkey. Contrary to what the volunteers of the movement are experiencing at home, most of these Muslim communities hold Erdogan in high regard and view him as a leader who is extremely vocal and active in defending the rights and freedoms of the Muslims around the world. Political differences need to be articulated with utmost sensitivity in a way that reflects the compassion and kindness of a Muslim. Fourth, despite the widespread educational activities and charity work of the movement in the less developed Muslim majority and non-Muslim majority countries, the movement is often criticized by American Muslim communities for not taking a political stance against the atrocities and injustices committed against Muslims in the less developed countries (primarily the Palestinian plight at the hands of the Israeli State). In order to mitigate this problem, the volunteers of Hizmet should develop a “universal language” that helps them both voice the concerns of other Muslim communities as well as non-Muslim communities worldwide.<br />
<br />
Moving forward what kinds of steps can the Hizmet movement take to foster its relations with other Muslim communities in the United States? Primarily, as part and parcel of their community bridging efforts, Hizmet volunteers should and must take active roles in Muslim organizations in their localities ranging from local MSAs (Muslim Student Association) to national organizations such as ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). The civic movement should crack its shell and embrace the real meaning of being a global movement. It should not foster an image of “cult” in the eyes of the people. Second, to integrate into the broader Muslim community in America, Hizmet institutions should cooperate with other Muslim communities on various local, religious and humanitarian issues and co-organize events and programs. Additionally, different programs aimed at bringing together the Muslim youth such as coffee nights, tea nights, movie screenings, welcome dinners, and picnics should be co-organized with other Muslim communities. In addition, they should organize food-drives, free clothing deliveries to the people in need during Holy Ramadan and Christmas in the local. Such organizations can help nurture and promote mutual understanding, respect, and civic engagement among the Muslim youth. Hizmet volunteers, apart from encouraging their fellow Muslim Americans to attend their organization’s events, should get involved in the activities organized by other Muslim communities. Even attendance of the volunteers of the Hizmet movement to weekly Jumu’ah (Friday) prayers and signature events held at community mosques with a more diverse audience can contribute enormously to the development of Hizmet’s relations with the fellow American Muslims.<br />
<br />
As an overarching principle or a basic rule of conduct, volunteers of the Hizmet movement should not let outside forces and political events shape the nature of their interactions with other American Muslims. For instance, as a timely warning, conversations between the participants of the Hizmet movement and other Muslim communities should not succumb to a polarizing political debate about the personality and leadership of any leader including Erdogan. As an emerging global social movement, the volunteers of Hizmet movement should avoid basing their relations with other Muslim communities to the political developments taking place in Turkey and not squander the opportunities of cooperation and collaboration with these communities.<br />
<br />
In conclusion, the significance of these relations cannot be overemphasized, and the development of these relations is highly dependent on five factors: mutual trust and understanding, mutual interaction, collective willingness, effective collaboration and avoidance of political disagreement. We appreciate those Hizmet institutions and volunteers who already achieved these standards and developed very good relations with other Muslim communities. Nonetheless, we still believe that there is much more that needs to be done in general as discussed in this brief observation piece.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] http://www.gulenmovement.com/what-is-hizmet-movement.html</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[2] http://hizmetnews.com/9517/pms-order-echoes-2004-mgk-decision/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[3] https://turkeypurge.com</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[4] (2018). The Friends of Sarah Lawrence College Presents: Exploring Islam in America–Mini-Course with Kristin Zahra Sands. US Official News.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[5] Austin, A. D. (1997). African Muslims in antebellum America: Transatlantic stories and spiritual struggles. New York: Routledge.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[6] See US Official News.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[7] “The Future of the Global Muslim Population”. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. January 27, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2018.</span><br />
<br />
Published on <a href="http://hizmetnews.com/24024/hizmets-relations-muslim-communities-united-states" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hizmet News</a>, 6 March 2018, TuesdayUnknownnoreply@blogger.com