Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and Foreign Minister Timo Soini [of Finland] have responded to a letter from the Finnish Union of Journalists. The Union’s missive asked the ministers to urge Turkey to avoid extreme measures in the aftermath of July’s failed coup.
“I was approached and asked by a Turkish government official, whether we would be prepared to critically confront the Gulen movement in Berlin,” Michael Müller, mayor premier of the state of Berlin, told the German newspaper Bild. “I rejected the idea and made it very clear that Turkish conflicts could not be waged in our city,” he added.
Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev rather quickly defused the problem with Turkey by making a visit to Ankara to meet with President Erdogan. Nazarbaev did not agree to close down the Gulen schools in Kazakhstan, but he did promise to carefully scrutinize those running the schools and those teaching in them.
Several African states have rejected Turkey’s request to close schools run by the Hizmet movement. Turkish President Erdogan accused Fethullah Gulen, who owns Hizmet, of involvement in the failed July 15 coup. When Turkish President Erdogan visited Uganda and Kenya in May, he sought to stamp out the influence of the Islamic cleric Gulen. He accused the preacher of using his connections to try to overthrow him, allegations which Gulen denied.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the United States must make a choice between Ankara and a movement led by US-based dissident Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Ankara has accused Gulen and his followers of playing a key role in the July 15 attempted coup, which claimed lives of over 240 people.
Thousands have been arrested. Civil rights are suspended. People are jailed with no way to consult lawyers or present a defense. The coup has become an excuse for Erdoğan to purge state institutions, and even the private sector, of his critics, regardless of their guilt with regard to the insurrection. The Turkish government — and a 100% state-controlled media — has accused the U.S. government of being behind the coup attempt itself and harboring its purported mastermind, Fetullah Gulen.
A source privy to the developments told that the Turkish nationals holding managerial designations will now serve as teachers in Pak-Turk schools. Reportedly, a new six-member BoD with complete local representation had been formed to run the affairs of the school.
Pak-Turk International’s Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) on Tuesday stressed against transferring the institutions’ control to other organisations as it will affect the future of its 1500 teachers’ future along with 10,000 students enrolled in 28 schools, colleges. The spokesman urged that if the government found any one from these schools involved in illegal practices, it should take strict action against him.
Schools and educational centres in the Kurdistan Region associated with the Gulen movement have insisted they are a private company operating under the Kurdish Ministry of Education and have no ties to Turkey. “In short, we are a Kurdistan company,” an official at the schools told Rudaw, speaking anonymously. “Our institutions operate under the directives and regulations of the Kurdistan Ministry of Education.”
Turkish authorities are arresting people for links to the Gulen movement, which denies involvement. The number of people detained by Turkish authorities following the failed coup to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has passed 26,000.
FDP leader Christian Lindner said he saw parallels between Erdogan’s behavior and the aftermath of the Reichstag fire in 1933 portrayed by the Nazis as a Communist plot against the government and used by Adolf Hitler to justify massively curtailing civil liberties. “We are experiencing a coup d’etat from above like in 1933 after the Reichstag fire. He is building an authoritarian regime tailored solely to himself,” Lindner said.