A pro-government Twitter troll who frequently uses offensive language to insult prominent political and social figures who do not embrace the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) ideals and practices has this time called on supporters of the ruling party to kill members of the Gülen movement.
In the latest example of the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) “parallel” paranoia, the ruling party’s Sinop deputy and head of the Parliamentary Interior Affairs Commission, Mehmet Ersoy, ordered restaurant officials in Parliament to remove a dish called “samanyolu kebap” as it reminds him of institutions affiliated with the “parallel structure,” a daily reported on Monday.
Everywhere in Turkey, people are talking about the clampdown on the Turkish media. The situation is quite dire. At Samanyolu, a TV station, has 14 broadcast channels in Turkey, English, Arabic and Kurdish and dozens of radio stations and popular news portals. Foreign news chief, Adnan Tokkapi, said its general manager, Hidayet Karaca, has been held in prison without conviction since December 2014.
In yet another government-backed operation targeting the Gülen movement (Hizmet movement), four tax inspectors from the Finance Ministry and a number of police officers conducted a raid on Saturday at a private school affiliated with the movement in the southern province of Adana, leading to protests from parents of the school’s students.
In yet another government-backed operation targeting the Gülen movement, tax inspectors from the Finance Ministry on Saturday carried out a raid with police at a private school opened by volunteers of the movement in southern province of Adana.
The raid came just two days after Turkey’s Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) announced the results of the Higher Education Entrance Examination (YGS), which revealed that students from Gülen-inspired schools are among the top scorers of the exam, casting doubt on the objectivity of the raid.
Mr. President, I have spoken many times on the Senate floor in defense of press freedom because it is a fundamental cornerstone of a democratic society. Today I want to briefly draw the Senate’s attention to the situation in Turkey, one of the many countries in the world where this basic right is under threat by officials in the government who seek to silence their critics.
Fetih Educational Operations (Fetih Eğitim İşletmeleri), which run schools affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement, has filed a compensation case against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for targeting these schools since the eruption of a major corruption scandal in December 2013.