Turkey’s Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) on Thursday announced the results of the Transition to Higher Education Examination (YGS), revealing that students from Gülen-affiliated schools, which have been the target of a government-sponsored defamation campaign, are among the top scorers of the exam.
A government whistleblower who tweets under the pseudonym Fuat Avni has alleged that the government is planning to plant weapons and ammunition in houses and buildings used by followers of the Hizmet movement in order to declare the movement a terrorist organization ahead of the upcoming general election.
ALİ KOCA / ISTANBUL The 2013 Turkish movie “selam” (Greeting) told the stories of volunteers who embraced humanity outside Turkey’s borders; it was a movie that was appreciated not for its cinematic qualities, but for the sake of the beloved memories of those pioneers who went to territories they knew very little about to open […]
A US-based think tank has released a report stating that the Gülen (Hizmet) movement, a grassroots civil society organization that has frequently accused government officials of obstructing the settlement negotiations between the government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has a progressive attitude regarding pro-Kurdish reforms.
Nearly 1.6 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, and they rely on support for their basic needs from the government and civilian volunteers, many of them motivated by their Muslim faith. Kimse Yok Mu is one Turkish nongovernmental aid organization that sponsors a refugee feeding program near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for “hate speech” and misattributing terrorism during the Paris attacks is ironic. Erdogan is erroneously doing both already: labeling the Gulen movement a terrorist organization and using hate speech to characterize it. In fact, Erdogan is cracking down on religious groups more heavily than ever before.
Members of the US Congress who submitted a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month on the dismal state of media freedom in Turkey are standing firm behind their signatures despite intense pressure from the Turkish government and the pro-government media.
On one hand he is a devout Muslim, and former member of the conservative Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), which was thrown out of the government in 1997 after a military memorandum, commonly known as the February 28 post-modern coup. Equally important for Tan is his identity as a Kurdish political figure, seeking political rights for his people and an end to conflict between armed rebels and the state.
The recent move to close down prep schools that serve to significantly boost equal opportunity in education may be seen as yet another failure to promote equality on the part of a government which has not yet ratified a UNESCO agreement to end discrimination in education.
The lawyer for Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, Nurullah Albayrak, in reaction to Turkish media reports on Tuesday of another arrest warrant being issued for his client, said in a statement that according to the law on criminal procedure, it is unlawful for a court to issue an arrest warrant unless the accused has been appropriately called to appear before the court.
With the Gülen movement officially marked in police reports as being a “terrorist organization,” we can say that the ruling party’s war against the civilian populace has truly reached its dirtiest stage. A brief summary: The Gülen movement is undoubtedly one of the Muslim world’s most peaceful and tolerant civil movements ever.