Erdogan's purges reach heart of Europe as Gulenists in Germany say they are being spied on

He shows some of the boycott lists that have been circulating on social media, urging German Turks to avoid businesses with alleged links to Mr Gülen. They are not just large concerns: they include a local ice cream parlour.

Mr Gülen’s followers accuse Turkey of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against them in Germany.

German MPs recently demanded an investigation into claims by Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Turkey’s MIT intelligence service has a bigger network of informers in Germany than the East German Stasi secret police had in West Germany.

The newspaper claimed that MIT has some 6,000 informers in Germany and uses them to intimidate members of the Turkish community.

Mr Gülen’s supporters are as adamant he was not behind the coup as Mr Erdogan’s supporters are sure he was.

“Mr Gülen said the coup had nothing to do with him. He condemned the coup, and so do we,” Mr Findik says. “Even the worst democracy is better than a military dictatorship.”

The question of the exiled cleric’s guilt or innocnence remains unresolved for now, at least outside Turkey. But the extent to which his followers can be considered to be complicit in any plot, if there was one, goes to the heart of the nature of Gülenism, which remains shadowy.

Mr Findik and Mr Örs say there is no Gülenist organisation as such. Instead they say it is a movement of those who follow the cleric’s teachings. They refer to this movement as Hizmet, the Turkish word for “service”.

“If you read one of Mr Gülen’s books and you agree with it, then you have joined Hizmet,” Mr Findik says. “We have people in Hizmet who are not even Muslim.”

Former members who have left the Gülenists and spoken to the German press about their time in the movement paint a different picture, however. They speak of tightly controlled organisation which seeks to control every details of its adherents’ lives. They say the movement recruits its followers through student residences known as “Houses of Light”.

They describe the Gülenists as obssessed with power, and point to a sermon in which Mr Gülen told his followers: “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centres.”

Inside Turkey, the movement sought to instal its followers in powerful positions in every facet of the state, from the military to judges. In Germany, so far as is known, it operates mostly schools and NGOs like Forum Dialog.

“Build schools, not mosques,” Mr Gülen told his followers. His movement is believed to run more than 100 educational establishments in Germany, including night schools and training centres.

Gülenist-run schools such as Wilhelmstadt have been careful to point out that they teach the standard German syllabus, not Mr Gülen’s writings. and do not attempt to inculcate pupil’s with Gülenist beliefs. Numerous complaints have been made to the German educational authorities over Wilhelmstadt’s Gülenist links, but not a single one has been upheld.

Michael Müller, the mayor of Berlin, told Bild newspaper recently the Turkish government had asked him to take action against Gülenist schools.

“I was approached by a Turkish government official and asked if we were willing to take a critical look at the Gülen movement in Berlin and possibly support measures against them,” Mr Müller said.

“It was particularly with regard to the movement’s educational institutions. I refused and made it clear that Turkish conflicts have nothing to do with us. We do not need lessons from Mr Erdogan in democracy and human rights.”

Source: The Telegraph , August 29, 2016