Erdogan’s Civil Death Project: Persecution of the Hizmet Movement in Türkiye

Toward the end of the last century, the Hizmet Movement emerged in Turkish society as a major proponent of civil society. ＂Hizmet,＂ also known as the Gülen Movement after its spiritual teacher Fethullah Gülen, achieved prominent recognition for its educational and multicultural work in Türkiye and elsewhere in the world.

Hizmet, with its broad spiritual base, entrepreneurial prowess, moral compass, savvy media use, community service (schools, hospitals, and humanitarian work), and global reach, posed a political and social challenge to the Erdogan regime’s growing autocracy and evermore evident corruption. Erdogan came to view Hizmet as his nemesis that roadblocked his march toward authoritarian rule.

Because Hizmet called into question their unethical values and anti-democratic maneuvers, Erdogan and AKP moved to isolate, denigrate, marginalize, dismantle, and suppress Hizmet. This included oppressing anyone opposing the government as associated with the ＂Movement,＂ even if they were not, as a way of being rid of them, too. Following the shadowy 2016 coup attempt, the government radically escalated its systemic oppression with mass arrests and detentions, initiating a lawless process that suppressed fundamental human rights like freedom, security, and the right to a fair trial as state policy, sidelining international law and Türkiye’s internal law.

This book makes the case for a regime politicide project against Hizmet in violation of both international law and Turkish law.

＂This volume’s insightful brilliance and careful thoroughness together offer a key instrument with which the outside world can better understand the simple and complex horrors associated with Erdogan’s despotic regime.＂

--Ori Z Soltes, PhD, Georgetown University. Author of Between Thought and Action: An Intellectual Biography of Fethullah Gülen

＂An outstanding book describing the devastating effect Erdogan’s attack on the Gülen Movement has had not only on the innocent victims of his ’hate campaign’ but also on the freedom, democracy and prosperity he promised in his early years.＂

--Andrea Barron, International human rights observer and advocate for torture survivors

Washington, D.C.

＂... a harrowing and meticulously documented analysis of President Erdogan’s campaign to eradicate the Hizmet movement.＂

--Johan Heymans, Managing Partner at Van Steenbrugge Advocaten; Johan Vande Lanotte, Former Deputy Prime Minister, Belgium (from the Afterword)

Turkiye, Fethullah Gulen, Hizmet, Human Rights, Persecution

James C. Harrington, a human rights attorney with nearly four decades of experience, is founder and director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. He has taught at the University of Texas School of Law for twenty-five years. Harrington has handled landmark civil rights cases, written and published widely, and served on human rights delegations in different areas of the world.