In the last 3 years, the Turkish government has eliminated more than 300.000 books, deeming them inappropriate because they are linked to the preacher Fethullah Gülen.
More than 300.000 books, 301.878 to be exact, from schools and public libraries, destroyed in three years by the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish Ministry of Education announced and the news was reported for the first time by the newspaper Hürriyet, and later by Turkish protest sites such as the Turkey Purge, which reports censorship and repression in the country.
The reason? They were linked, according to the government, to the Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, accused by Erdoğan of the coup d'état of 15 July 2016.
La destruction of books is never a good sign, and it is certainly not a democratic gesture, but unfortunately in Turkey several human rights NGOs have long accused the Erdoğan government of authoritarianism: publishing houses and several newspapers have been closed in recent years and many intellectuals accused of having organized or participated in the coup state of 2016.
According to the Guardian, which first reported the news in the West, for some time now the Turkish government has been eliminating texts considered inconvenient, for example in 2016 1 million and 800 thousand school books were withdrawn and reprinted because they contained the word "Pennsylvania", state where Erdoğan's archenemy, Fethullah Gülen, is exiled.
Immediately after the 2016 coup, more than 200 media and publishers were shut down, many academics were fired, voices critical of the government silenced.
Person Wikipedia, as reported by PEN International, years ago it was blocked by the government, which has thus proved for the umpteenth time to be contrary to freedom of expression. And despite the numerous protests, the books continue to disappear. 300.000 texts destroyed in just 3 years are not few!
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The extraordinary Parthenon made with the "forbidden books" (PHOTO)
Laura Rose
Photo Credit: Turkey Purge
