Sunday, April 22, 2012

Newsfeed - April 22

GIT - North America is an independent organization, supported solely by the volunteered time dedicated by its members who are faculty and graduate students working on Turkey.

To sign the inaugural declaration of GIT, please send an e-mail to diana.gonzalez2@wanadoo.fr -- to join GIT - North America, e-mail gitamerica@yahoo.com

What is a Turkish Imam Doing in North Philadelphia?

The Inquirer reported last spring that federal agencies are investigating whether some Turkish charter-school employees are required to kick back part of their salaries to a Muslim movement founded by Gulen known as Hizmet, or Service, according to knowledgeable sources. Read more about the case  by Martha Woodall of the Philadelphia Inquirer on the allegations raised over North Philadelphia charter school run by the followers of a Turkish imam via GIT North America.
  
You were right after all. The shame is ours.

Read Yildirim Turker’s commentary on the recent KCK arrests, the AK Party government’s judiciary  and the September 12 politics via GIT North America. 

Prison Letters 

Read the letters from Aysel Diler and Sevcan Goktas, two students in prison among many others, on GIT North America's Witness Accounts.
These letters are responses to the cards they received from Baki Tezcan, a GIT – North America member on research leave in Turkey, where he had participated at the Prison Lectures on March 3, 2012, at the end of which the audience wrote cards to the women students held at the Bakırköy Women’s Prison and elsewhere.  
 
Two letters from Aysel

After receiving this first letter from Ms. Diler, Tezcan wrote a letter to her to which she responded in her second letter. The letters were translated into English by Tezcan. Read it on GIT North America's Witness Accounts.

 A letter from Sevcan

This letter was translated into English by Zeynep Oğuz based on the Turkish text transcribed by Tezcan. You can read the Turkish version of the text on Bianet and the English version on GIT North America's Witness Accounts. Sevcan's case was very well known and followed closely. Two members of parliament from the Republican People's Party Veli Ağbaba (Malatya) and Hüseyin Aygün (Tunceli) attended some of the proceedings and protested the handling of the case. You can read Turkish coverage of the case in two articles on Bianet.