Denizli restaurant refuses to serve Gulenists

“Traitors, putschists and paralells not are allowed in,” the huge banner hung on the side of a restaurant in Denizli’s Acıpayam district stated in a clear reference to Gulen Movement which the government accuses of masterminding the July 15 coup.

Parallel refers to members of the alleged terrorist network of the movement within state institutions.

The incident came as the latest of such discriminatory language adopted by both top state officials as well as ordinary shopkeepers across Turkey.

Among the insulting words that especially Erdoğan has been using to describe the sympathizers of the movement over the past three years are viruses, parallels, assassins, thugs, bloodsucker, infidels, puppets of foreign countries and secret agents.

Early in August, a Konya stallholder hung a banner that read “Gulenists are not allowed to shop here,” on his sales booth, revealing the dimension of demonization of Gulen movement and its followers across the country.

While another banner in Istanbul stated in mid-August:  “Parallels and sympathizers of parallels not allowed inside the restaurant,” the Director of Education in Ankara’s Altındağ was publicly asked if she was Gulenist, in two banners hung on a pole on the street this weekend.