Fatih Tezcan, a pro-government columnist, said in a video that he is sure the Turkish state had embedded a secret agent in the Gülen movement and that now it is time for him to “terminate” Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. During his 1.08-minute video, Tezcan curses the Gülen movement and the US-based Gülen and says that the murder of Gülen is something desired by the entire Muslim world.
With its leafy playing fields and historic buildings on the site of a former British army barracks, the Wilhelmsdtadt School in the Berlin suburb of Spandau could easily be mistaken for a English boarding school.
In the late evening of Friday, July 15, word spread across the world that a coup was under way in Turkey. The president was missing, the military announced it had taken control of the country, and a few hours later, in the early hours Saturday morning, the coup was over.
Turks, who make up the majority of Germany’s immigrant community, claim their schools and mosques are being spied on by Erdogan’s undercover agents to root out supporters of Fethullah Gülen – the man the Turkish president claims is behind July’s bloody military coup.
Hizmet is an Islamic movement with activities in more than 180 countries. To its followers, the gulenists, Gulen — a man with swallow feet and low voice who says he spends most of his time praying and studying — is a democrat in favor of the Turkish democratization.
Alp Aslandogan, president of the New York-based Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV), said Gulen believes the Turkish authorities will not be able to produce concrete evidence to link him to the attempted coup in Turkey last month because that link [to the coup] is false… “So if something is not true, how can they prove it?’ Aslandogan told Middle East Eye in a telephone interview.
Wow…realpolitik will take precedence. It’s okay to send Gulen to his death. What do we care about the execution of a Muslim cleric who paid for full-page ads in the New York Times to condemn 9/11 attacks, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and ISIS, forged ties between Jews, Christians and Muslims, who came to America because of our freedoms, and will honor our request, putting his fate in God’s hands, and our own. And why do we care that he goes to his death at the hands of a man who had good things to say about Hitler’s system of government.
Vocal Europe: What sort of link does Alliance for Shared Values have with the movement in general and with Mr Gulen in particular? Alp Aslandogan: Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV) has six regional partner organizations and AFSV serves as a loose umbrella for these organizations. They focus on interfaith and intercultural dialogue, helping new immigrants […]
Such movements, especially if they’re Muslim, attract suspicion in the West. In 2008, the Dutch government began investigating Hizmet. Its conclusions were that the movement isn’t involved in terrorism or a breeding ground for radicalism, nor does it oppose integration of Muslims into secular states. In 2015, MLK’s alma mater, Morehouse College, awarded its Gandhi King Ikeda Peace Award to Gülen for his lifelong commitment to peace among nations. But Erdogan insists that Gülen is a terrorist.
The US government cannot violate the country’s Constitution by detaining and extraditing Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen without probable cause simply to appease Turkey, former US Assistant States Attorney Nick Akerman told Sputnik.
I am not trying to absolve one side or the other. The coup attempt was a heinous assault on Turkey’s civilian politics and the plotters must be punished in a fashion that deters similar actions in the future. What I am trying to understand is why everyone agrees that Gulenists did it when there is little evidence and that is even questionable.