Chief General Eduardo Año: We don’t consider Gulen movement a terror group


Date posted: July 18, 2017

Trisha Macas / Philippines

Armed Forces chief General Eduardo Año has confirmed that the movement linked to Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen is not labeled as a terror group.

Interviewed by reporters in Malacañang, Año said organizations in the Philippines linked to the Gulen movement have been helping people.

“Well, the Fethullah Gulen movement is—we do not consider that as a terrorist group. Right now, their activities here are helping the community,” he said.

The clarification was issued after Turkish Ambassador Esra Cankorur claimed that those groups work like sleeper cells.

“So probably iyong ambassador ng Turkey, may sarili siyang basis kung bakit niya sinabi iyan because—I think you know what happened in Turkey, there was an attempted coup and they believe this coup was staged or inspired by this Fethullah Gulen movement,” Año said.

“But that is an internal affair of Turkey. We do not want to be entangled with that,” he added.

Also on Tuesday, former Education Secretary and De La Salle Philippines president Bro. Armin Luisto and other religious groups expressed support to two non-government organizations being linked to terrorist organizations, noting the NGOs’ track records in peace-building.

“I have never had any reason to link their operations here with alleged terror groups locally as this would seem totally in conflict with their on-going advocacies and programs on peace-building,” Luistro said in a statement.

He was referring to Integrative Center for Alternative Development Foundation, Inc. (ICAD) and Pacific Dialogue Foundation, Inc. (PDF), which run the Filipino-Turkish Tolerance School in Zamboanga City and the Fountain International School in San Juan City, both of which were linked by Turkish Ambassador to the Philippines Esra Cankorur to the Fethullah Gulen Movement, a supposed terrorist organization.

Source: GMA News Online , July 18, 2017

Tags: | | | |


Related News

Gov’t targets Hizmet to distract attention from corruption, says director

Demirkubuz believes that all the “good things” that the government did prior to the 2010 referendum were to guarantee its position, rather than celebrating the rule of law and justice, as evidenced by the fact that the prosecutors who were called heroes yesterday are called traitors today. Demirkubuz urged society to go through an exercise of self-criticism in terms of the preference for power over freedoms.

The view from Brussels

The idea in Brussels, like among all sound-minded people here in Turkey, rather, is that the Erdoğan government is using the “parallel state” conspiracy theory as a pretext to suppress the investigation into the gravest bribery and corruption charges in the history of the country and destroy the achievements of the last 10 years in terms of democracy and the rule of law.

Kimse Yok Mu extends helping hand to Syrians in Jordan, Lebanon

6 April 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL The Turkish charity foundation Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) has begun to send aid to thousands of Syrian refugees who have escaped to Lebanon and Jordan from their conflict-stricken homeland. Tens of thousands of Syrian citizens have taken shelter in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Jordan and […]

Latest practices of AK Party gov’t raise fears of ‘one-party state’

İstanbul branch chairman, Aziz Babuşcu, who said the removal of Hizmet movement sympathizers from state institutions started long before the corruption scandal broke on Dec. 17 of last year. Babuşcu’s remarks drew condemnations, with many accusing the AK Party of removing public servants that the party dislikes from duty and filling state institutions with party supporters.

‘Fethullah Gulen is one of the leading Islamic thinkers in the world’

I think the Gulen, or Hizmet, Movement represents Islam by, on the one hand, maintaining a strong connection to and being rooted in the Islamic primary sources, such as the Qur’an and the Prophetic teachings, but, at the same time, not neglecting the world around it.

Türksat removes Zaman, 3 others from ad list

Türksat withdrew its ads from three other dailies as well: Bugün, Taraf and Radikal, all of which have published articles that criticized the government’s efforts to cover up an ongoing investigation into alleged corruption claims.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Belgium firm to sue Turkey over Gülen-linked assets

Woman miscarries twins after arrest, struggles for her life in prison

Turkey Systematically And Deliberately Jails Women As Part Of Fear And Intimidation Campaign

Kerry: Turkish President’s Insinuation of US Role in Attempted Coup is ‘Harmful to Our Bilateral Relations’

Turks See Purge as Witch Hunt of ‘Medieval’ Darkness

Kimse Yok Mu reaches out to Syrians in joint project with UNHCR

Today’s Zaman: six years of intense coverage

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News