Islamist Turkey: A tale of self-serving secularism and the hypocritical Kemalists
On January 10, Enes Kara, a second-year medical student residing in a dormitory run by a cultish Islamist group in the city of Elâzığ committed suicide, alleging intense pressure by the group members to follow strict religious rules, among other things. While the news of his death was received with sorrow and anger by people across the political and ideological divide, the Kemalists and secularists were the ones leading the outcry. They called for a blanket ban on all student dormitories run by each and every religious group citing this incident. Less than a week later, 16-year-old Bahadır Odabaşı took his own life, depressed due to his father’s unjust and arbitrary incarceration for the past four years. His father Nureddin Odabaşı was dismissed from his job following the coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on July 15, 2016. He was later put behind bars for his alleged affiliation to the Gülen Movement, which is also an Islamically inspired group and recognise