Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Turkish government destroys more than 300,000 books
Source: The Guardian
Turkish government destroys more than 300,000 books
Regime says it is cracking down on anything linked to Fethullah Gülen, the Muslim cleric it blames for 2016’s attempted coup
Alison Flood
Tue 6 Aug 2019 17.05 BST Last modified on Tue 6 Aug 2019 17.06 BST
More than 300,000 books have been removed from Turkish schools and libraries and destroyed since the attempted coup of 2016, according to Turkey’s ministry of education.
Turkey’s education minister Ziya Selçuk announced last week that 301,878 books had been destroyed as the government cracks down on anything linked to Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Muslim cleric who is accused by Turkey of instigating 2016’s failed military coup. Gülen has denied involvement.
The figure was first reported by the popular newspaper Hürriyet, with images of books being seized and burned published by online news outlet Kronos27.
According to the website Turkey Purge, which describes itself as “a small group of young journalists who are trying to be the voice for Turkish people who suffer under an oppressive regime”, in 2016 a maths book was banned for featuring Gülen’s initials in a question reading “from point F to point G”. In December 2016, Turkish newspaper BirGün reported that 1.8m textbooks had been destroyed and reprinted for containing the “objectionable” word Pennsylvania, which is where Gülen lives in a guarded compound. Streets named Gülen in Ankara have also been renamed, according to reports.
-snip-
Regime says it is cracking down on anything linked to Fethullah Gülen, the Muslim cleric it blames for 2016’s attempted coup
Alison Flood
Tue 6 Aug 2019 17.05 BST Last modified on Tue 6 Aug 2019 17.06 BST
More than 300,000 books have been removed from Turkish schools and libraries and destroyed since the attempted coup of 2016, according to Turkey’s ministry of education.
Turkey’s education minister Ziya Selçuk announced last week that 301,878 books had been destroyed as the government cracks down on anything linked to Fethullah Gülen, the US-based Muslim cleric who is accused by Turkey of instigating 2016’s failed military coup. Gülen has denied involvement.
The figure was first reported by the popular newspaper Hürriyet, with images of books being seized and burned published by online news outlet Kronos27.
According to the website Turkey Purge, which describes itself as “a small group of young journalists who are trying to be the voice for Turkish people who suffer under an oppressive regime”, in 2016 a maths book was banned for featuring Gülen’s initials in a question reading “from point F to point G”. In December 2016, Turkish newspaper BirGün reported that 1.8m textbooks had been destroyed and reprinted for containing the “objectionable” word Pennsylvania, which is where Gülen lives in a guarded compound. Streets named Gülen in Ankara have also been renamed, according to reports.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/06/turkish-government-destroys-more-than-300000-books