Plans to abolish “prep schools” in Turkey have sparked a huge feud between two of the country’s most powerful forces on the micro-blogging website Twitter.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK party have proposed eliminating the schools, which provide private tuition classes to help high school children prepare for university entrance exams.
This has angered supporters of the Gulen movement, which finances and runs many of the schools. Numerous hashtags about the row have been tweeted millions of times over the past week.
#BBCtrending reports that the row points to deeper tensions between Mr Erdogan and the Gulen movement.
Pakistan – Staff expelled from Turkish-backed schools on Erdogan’s demand
Amnesty South Asia Director Champa Patel: “With 24 million Pakistani children out of school, Pakistan’s decision to expel teachers from the Pak-Turk International Schools and Colleges will only hurt Pakistan’s children. What the country needs is more classrooms and more teachers, not a politically-motivated decision to purge educators at the behest of the Turkish government.”
KADİP’s 1st international photography contest held for peace
The Intercultural Dialogue Platform (KADİP) of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) announced the winners of its very first international photography contest, “Peace in the frame,” at a gala on Tuesday night at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in İstanbul.
49-member team to report to President Erdoğan on Gülen-linked trials
A group of 49 people, nine experts from Turkey’s State Inspection Council and 40 key advisers of President Tayyip Erdoğan, will closely monitor trials concerning the Gülen movement and submit reports to the president.
Turkish anti-terrorism police carried out raids in six cities, detaining at least five people with alleged links to al-Qaida
The police raid “is a deliberate attack on the IHH,” said Yasar Kutluay, the group’s secretary general. “They are trying to portray the group as an organization with links to terrorism.” He blamed Israel and Gulen’s supporters, for the operation — a charge Gulen’s movement immediately rejected as “slander and false incrimination.”
Hizmet turns theories of Millennium Development Goals into practice
The 2015 Millennium Development Goals of the UN were discussed in the international panel, with participants agreeing that the goals can only be sustainably achieved through education.
Black propaganda websites granted legal shield
Circles close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government have been accused of conducting a large-scale black propaganda war against the Hizmet movement, which was inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen; media outlets close to the movement; and journalists critical of the government.
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