As the international media focuses on Gaza, trouble is growing in Turkey as the government continues to round up politial opponents, academicians, and secular intellectuals on charges of alleged involvement in a plot against the government. (My background on the case, here).
On Monday, the association of Turkey’s judges commented in an official statement that the AKP’s judicial interference and round-ups of opponents were similar to “the eras of Hitler and Mussolini.”
Rachel Sharon-Krespin, MEMRI’s chief Turkey analyst, gives further background to what is going on in Turkey in the current Middle East Quarterly as she examines Fethullah Gulen’s movement, whose charitable wing is similar to that of the Alavi Foundation, and which is embraced by prominent Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Sharon-Krespin’s study of Fethullah Gulen’s movement should be a must read.
(So too will be Bassam Tibi’s article, which will be available online shortly).