Viral video shows Erdoğan’s insults against Gülen movement

September 13, 2014 By administrator

A new video published on YouTube that has gone viral over the social media shows a compilation of insults and phrases that are tantamount to hate speech uttered by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The video was prepared by sonvesayet.com, meaning the final tutelage, referring to the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and published online this week. The video is composed of some dozens of insults by Erdoğan in fast-track, targeting a movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. Most of the speeches in the video are made after Dec. 17 corruption scandal, which he dismissed as a plot to unseat him and blamed on alleged followers of Gülen in the bureaucracy. He went on insulting rampage after the corruption scandal, calling followers of the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, as leeches, blood-sucking vampires and parasites.

http://youtu.be/qDliWB3n7wA

LAUSD Will Not Renew Turkish Imam Gulen-Linked Schools’ Charters

August 27, 2014 By administrator

LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles Unified School District Board on Tuesday voted unanimously to not renew the charters of two schools operating under the Gulen-affiliated Magnolia Science Academy.

The Magnolia Academy 6, a middle school in Palms and the Magnolia Science Academy 7, an elementary school in Northridge, were both slated to be shutdown after an LAUSD audit deemed them insolvent based on IRS standards due to a $1.7 million deficit and charged financial misappropriations by the school administrations. The audit also found that the school had

However, in late July LA Superior Court Judge Luis A. Lavin granted an injunction in order to not disrupt the student community, but ordered a strict investigation into the finances of the MERF and the Magnolia schools. Lavin’s ruling means that the schools will remain open after Tuesday’s vote but their charters will not be renewed for operation beyond that.

This ruling comes a week after the Joint Legislative Audit Committee called for a statewide audit of the Magnolia Science Academies of California, which runs 12 tax payer-funded charter schools in the state that have ties to the Gulen Institute, affiliated to the Turkish cleric Fettulah Gulen.

The audit, requested by State Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian, brings forth major concerns of misappropriation of tax payer funds of the 12 Magnolia charter schools and their parent company, the Magnolia Education and Research Foundation (MERF).

“Charter Schools play an important role in the public education system by delivering a high quality education to our students. I am deeply troubled that public education funds are being abused by the Magnolia Academies. It was important to bring this request forward to ensure that our tax payer dollars aren’t being misspent, at the expense of the students, and the taxpayers who support public education.” said Nazarian.

On the national level, Gulen-affiliated schools have come under investigation for questionable financial practices, to filling teacher positions with often unqualified people brought in from Turkey.

Gulen-affiliated charter schools in Arizona, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas and New Jersey have been under investigation by the FBI since 2011.

The Gülen Movement has spent $ 1.5 million to lobby against recognition of the Armenian genocide by Turkish website

July 31, 2014 By administrator

Proponents of the ideology of Gülen in Turkey and the United States over the past 8 years moving spent $ 1.5 million to lobby against recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Turkish site Haber 10reprenant information published by the U.S. site Buzzfeed.

And since 2007, to lobby against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide Gülen movement has donated $ 1.5 million to U.S. politicians. Among those who received donations are registered U.S. President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others.

Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish preacher, former imam and writer. He is the founder of the Gülen movement (sometimes known as Hizmet). He currently lives in exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in the United States. Gülen teaches (Hanafi) Anatolian version of Islam, derived from the teachings of Sunni Islamic scholar Said Nursi. Gülen is actively involved in the public debate on the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. It has been described in the English media as “one of the world’s most important Muslim figures.” However, Gülen movement has been described as “having the characteristics of a cult” and its concealment and its influence in Turkish politics compared to “an Islamic Opus Dei.”

The Gülen movement is a transnational Islamic civic society movement inspired by the teachings of Gülen. His teachings on hizmet (selfless service to serve the “common good”) have attracted a large number of supporters in Turkey, Central Asia, and increasingly in other parts of the world.

Despite the claims of Gulen and his followers that the organization is non-political in nature, analysts believe that a significant number of arrests related to corruption charges against allies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reflects a struggle of growing political power between Gülen and the Prime Minister.

Thursday, July 31, 2014,

Stéphane © armenews.com

Gülen movement to be added to top-secret national security ‘Red Book’

July 20, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA

Hurriyet daily news Report, The movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, referred to by government officials as the “parallel state,” will be added to Turkey’s top-secret national security document, known as the “Red Book,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced.

“An organization that threatens our national security will of course take its place in it [the Red Book]. The fight against [this organization] has become one of priorities of the state,” Erdoğan told private broadcaster TGRT on July 20, adding that the fight against the “parallel structure” had also been recently discussed at the National Security Council (MGK), the country’s top security board.

The Red Book national security document lists Turkey’s perceived domestic and external threats, and is updated by the MGK when necessary. It was last updated in 2010.

Erdoğan, who is currently running to become Turkey’s first ever directly-elected president in next month’s election, linked the anti-Gülen struggle to the unity and integrity of the country. “I will follow this fight [against this organization] if I am elected president. This is because my people have suffered [from this organization], I know this,” he said.

The fight between one-time-allies the Erdoğan government and the Gülen movement began late last year after a massive corruption and graft investigation against four ministers led by Istanbul prosecutors went public. The government states that the operation was a plot carried out by prosecutors and police officers loyal to Gülen, aiming to topple Erdoğan and his government. Since the probe broke, thousands of prosecutors and police officers have been removed from their previous positions, with pro-government prosecutors now probing the activities of the “parallel state.”

SCANDAL RIDDEN TURKISH GÜLEN SCHOOLS SPARK DISTURBANCE AMONGST PARENTS IN US

July 16, 2014 By administrator

Ragıp Soylu

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A series of teachers’ testimonies in front of the Ohio Board of Education unleashed dramatic problems related to Gülen-tied charter schools and led an immediate investigation of 19 Horizon

Schools in the state. Former teachers from the Horizon Science Academy Dayton High School claimed that the school was the center of test cheating, sexual misconduct, attendance tampering, racism and unequal student treatment for many years.Kellie Kochensparger, a teacher having worked with Horizon until last year, told the board that school administrators had failed to tell parents that there was sexual misconduct when they suspended a number of students. Instead administrators explained parents that the suspension of the students was due to the fact that they were outside of their assigned areas.

According to the written statements of the teachers, racism and sexism were other issues that they had to deal with during their daily routine with school officials.

Tim Neary, another professional who taught for two years at the school, argued that racism and sexism were common at Horizon Science Academy. “There was no professionalism toward women. It was almost gross how they’d talk to women. Asking questions that could get you fired, especially if you were a woman. The majority of the people fired were women.” she added.

Other testimonies of Turkish teachers’ treatment of black students explained that many of the teachers called them “monkey” and “dog” in Turkish and punished black kids more severely than their Turkish friends. Some teachers said they had been afraid to come forward before finding new jobs. Teachers also cited the incompetency of emigrated Turkish colleagues numerous times and pointed out that school administrators weren’t acting based on common testing rules and tampered results.

According to the Columbus Dispatch’s report, after listening to what had been happening in the school, members of the Ohio Board of Education were “outraged” and “disgusted.” “Inside, my blood is boiling,” said Deborah Cain, a board member from Uniontown. “It is almost incomprehensible.”

Horizon Science Academies are operated by Chicago-based Concept Schools. The Federal Bureau of Investigation last months also raided 19 charter schools affiliated with the Gülen Movement in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois for reasons allegedly related to crimes linked to education tenders. The investigation targeted Concept Schools, an institution that operates the movement’s schools, according to local media outlets.

Most recently, two charter schools (Magnolia Charter Schools 6 and 7) affiliated with the Gülen Movement in Los Angeles have been ordered to be shut down when they were denied a renewal of their four-year contract with the LA School District Charter School Division following an internal fiscal audit report by the district’s Inspector General. Another charter school affiliated with the movement was shut down in 2011 for bribery charges.

The movement is led by a controversial imam living in rural Pennsylvania in self-imposed exile, who is at odds with the Turkish government over the influence he wields inside the Turkish police forces and top judiciary. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently requested the extradition of Fethullah Gülen both privately and publicly from the Obama administration and accused Gülen of plotting a judicial coup against the Turkish government before the local elections last March.

Notice: Daily Sabah known to be the pacemouth of government

Source: http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/07/16/scandal-ridden-gulen-schools-spark-disturbance-amongst-parents-in-us

Turkey, Order sent to police to probe Gülen movement’s ‘possible armed branch’ including murder of journalist Hrant Dink,

July 7, 2014 By administrator

Turkey’s Security General Directorate has sent a notice to the police chiefs of 30 provinces, as part of an investigation to determine whether the Fethullah Gülen movement includes an armed organization within its structure.

The head of Security General Directorate’s anti-terror branch, Turgut Aslan, sent the notice upon an order by the prosecutors’ office, asking for all related documents to be sent. The investigation is being run by the Investigation Office of Crimes against the Constitutional Order, which operates under the Ankara Public Prosecutors’ Office.

Ankara Public Prosecutors’ Office Head Serdar Coşkun has previously issued an order for an investigation into the Gülen movement, Al-Jazeera Türk reported on June 23.

The latest notice directs police to investigate “whether Fethullah Gülen and his movement possess armed force or power enough to topple the government or destroy the Constitution in the event of a possible armed action by the movement’s members serving in the army, gendarmerie forces, security units and National Intelligence Organization [MIT].”

It also requests the reexamination of all major incidents that have taken place in Turkey over the last 10 years, seeking the possible involvement of the Gülen members as perpetrators or abettors. The murder of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the murders of three Christian missionaries in 2007, and the attack on the Council of State are among the key incidents that the probe requests be probed.

The notice ordered police to “immediately” locate where the movement allegedly keeps its archives and to conduct raids on these addresses. It will also identify the movement’s members, determine their addresses and seek permission from the authorities to allow monitoring of Gülenists’ phone conversations and electronic communication records.

The operations to search and collect evidence should be conducted simultaneously and in strict confidence, the order stated.

The order also requested the questioning as a victim of former national police chief Hanefi Avcı, who was released on June 20 after being controversially sentenced to 15 years in jail for a book he wrote, along with other former police chiefs Emin Aslan, Celal Uzunkaya, Faruk Ünsal and Orhan Özdemir.

Avcı’s book, “Haliç’te Yaşayan Simonlar: Dün Devlet Bugün Cemaat” (Devoted Residents of Haliç: Yesterday, State, Today, Religious Community), and the book “İmamın Ordusu” (The Imam’s Army) by journalist Ahmet Şık, who spent 11 months in detention after the book’s publication, will also be sent along with the other documents as a part of the probe.

July/07/2014

Source: hurriyet daily news

Azerbaijan shuts down ‘Gülen-linked’ schools

June 19, 2014 By administrator

BAKU, Azerbaijan – Anadolu Agency

Azerbaijan’s government-run energy company has announced that private schools run by affiliates of the movement led by U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen have been closed down.

From February to April, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) took over dozens of private high schools, university exam preparation centers and universities run by a Turkish education company called Çağ Ögretim, which is thought to be linked to the Gülen movement.

SOCAR announced on June 18 that it had decided to close the schools, which were operated by the company now known as Azerbaijan International Education Center, due to “high maintenance costs and difficulties in project management.”

In Azerbaijan, 13 schools, one university and 13 prep schools linked to Gülen affiliates had been operating. Two years ago all of these institutions were transferred to the Azerbaijan state oil company, SOCAR, but preserved their management, teachers and curriculum without any changes. Diplomatic sources said these schools were still operating and there were no changes in the administration’s view of them.

Pro-government newspapers have reported that the Gülen community has succeeded in “infiltrating” the Azeri state and is influencing the decision-making process of Turkey’s oil-rich neighbor.

In March, Azeri media reported that Elnur Aslanov, the head of President İlham Aliyev’s Political Analysis and Information Department, had been sacked over alleged links to the movement.

The move came after claims that Gülen’s network had infiltrated state institutions in Azerbaijan and established cohorts among politicians.

Tension between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Gülen, former allies, has been simmering for years, but boiled over after the government’s decision to close private test prep schools (dershanes) across the country.

The move to shut down the test prep schools came amid Erdoğan’s struggle against what he calls the “parallel state,” which he accuses of plotting against the government through corruption and graft claims.

The rift between the government and the Gülen movement was crystalized on Dec. 17, 2013, when massive graft investigations were initiated by prosecutors and police chiefs allegedly linked to Gülen.

Thousands of people, including Erdoğan, national intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and a wide range of journalists, academics, business leaders and nongovernmental organization representatives, have been wiretapped for years by the police as part of different probes, Turkish media claimed Feb. 24.

June/19/2014

Azerbaijan Pipelineistan & the Gülen-SOCAR Network Exposed

June 11, 2014 By administrator

By Christoph Germann

As Ozkan notes, one of the biggest obstacles to the Trans-Caspian pipeline is Russia’s strong opposition. Furthermore, up to this point, the European Union has failed to come up with a unified energy policy and it does not look like as if this will change anytime soon. Relations between Turkey and Russia are fairly complex and resilient but if the Turkish government continues to push ahead with the Trans-Caspian project, Ankara’s ties with Moscow could be damaged beyond repair. In recent weeks, Turkey was remarkably silent about the crisis in Ukraine, much to the dismay of its NATO allies.

According to the Kremlin, Turkish PM Erdogan even praised “the decisions made by the Russian president to improve the situation of Crimean Tatars.” With Turkish-Russian relations apparently unaffected by the Ukraine crisis, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev used the Turkic Council summit to make the case for closer cooperation between the Turkic countries and the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and he invited Turkey to join the newly formed trade bloc. Although the Erdogan government will hardly take the offer, there seems to be a rapprochement between Ankara and Moscow. Dr. Vitaly Naumkin explained recently the reason for this:

Russia, Turkey agree on Gulen

Paradoxically, what today promotes the rapprochement between Russia and Turkey is Moscow’s extremely negative attitude toward the activities and ideas of Fethullah Gulen. In the past, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) were allied with the leader of this Islamic sect — which is taking root in many countries around the world and in which a significant portion of Turkey’s population is involved, including prominent officials and, in particular, members of the security structures and the judges — Moscow’s position acted as an irritant for Ankara. Now, however, with the Cold War flaring up between the leader of the AKP and Gulen, who resides in the United States, Moscow’s position creates an interest in joint actions to limit his influence. Recall that all Gulenist schools have been closed in Russia, and in 2012 numerous books by this ideologue were included in the federal list of extremist literature by a Russian court decision

…

Russia was one of the first countries to ban the CIA-backed Gülen movement and, in contrast to other governments, the Kremlin will not rethink this decision. Experts such as Vasily Ivanov, an associate at the influential Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, warn against the nefarious cult. In his paper “Fethullah Gulen’s Movement: an extremist organization masquerading as supporters of ‘the dialogue of civilizations’” Ivanov argues that the Gülen movement “glamorizes the idea of armed jihad.” A few weeks ago, more and more people in Azerbaijan came to the same conclusion. The crackdown of the Aliyev regime on the Gülen movement was somewhat surprising considering Baku’s subservience to Washington and some things did not add up, as mentioned in a previous round-up:

“A published list of alleged Azerbaijani Gülenists also included Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov and, ironically, SOCAR’s vice-president Khalik Mammadov, which has prompted some speculation whether Baku is really cracking down on Hizmet by placing its schools under SOCAR’s control or if the Gülenists are in league with the state-owned oil and natural gas corporation.”

…

This week, a new article exposing the extensive lobbying efforts of the Azerbaijani authorities in the United States shed more light on the relationship between the Sate Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and the movement of CIA puppet Fethullah Gülen. According to the report, since early 2013, American lawmakers in 17 states have introduced resolutions or memorials relating to Azerbaijan, all of which had one thing in common:

Inside Azerbaijan’s Bizarre U.S. Lobbying Push

What the initiatives had in common was they nearly all had at least one sponsor who attended a conference in the capital Baku in May 2013 organized by the Turquoise Council for Americans and Eurasians. The council is a Houston-based group connected to Fethullah Gulen, the leader of the moderate Islamist Hizmet movement who fled Turkey in 1999 after clashing with secular Turkish authorities who accused him of trying to turn Turkey into a religious Islamist state.

The Turquoise Council, headed by a Gulenist follower named Kemal Oksuz, paid for the travel of lawmakers who went on the trip, according to congressional records. Oksuz also chairs the Assembly for the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ), a Houston group sponsored by SOCAR, which hosted a U.S.-Azerbaijan convention in Washington at the end of April attended by many of the same lawmakers who went on the trip to Baku, as well as other members of Congress and former administration officials. The Assembly’s vice president is Milla Perry Jones, the sister of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and its treasurer is Rauf Mammadov, the chief of SOCAR’s U.S. branch. Oksuz also owned TDM Contracting, a construction firm in Texas that worked to build a network of Gulenist charter schools there.

…

So the Gülen movement and SOCAR are definitely working hand in hand, which means that Azerbaijan’s move to place the Gülen schools under SOCAR’s control did not really amount to a crackdown. Besides the Gülen-SOCAR network, the Aliyev regime is also using the Azerbaijan America Alliance as a conduit to lobby in the United States. The fairly new group is run by Anar Mammadov, the son of Azerbaijan’s Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov, and Dan Burton, former U.S. Congressman from Indiana. Burton demonstrated his abilities as a lobbyist already during his time in Congress. He did not shy away from taking bribes from the government of Turkey or Pakistan’s ISI and has earned himself a place in Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery. Having friends like Burton in its pocket enables the Azerbaijani government to influence resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh and the like but it will not solve Baku’s latest problem. A few days after French energy giant Total decided to sell its stake in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II gas project to Turkey’s state oil company TPAO, both Total and E.ON announced their plans to withdraw from the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP):

Turkish FM Davutoğlu annuls decree ordering Turkish embassies to support Gülenists: Reports

May 20, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu arrives to attend a Friends of Syria meeting at The Foreign Office in London, May 15. REUTERS Photo

A 2003-dated decree ordering Turkish embassies abroad to support and facilitate the activities of the Fethullah Gülen community has been annulled upon the instruction of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, two Turkish newspapers have reported.

Newspapers Cumhuriyet and Zaman said the decree annulling the 2003-dated decree was sent to Turkish embassies and consulates several weeks ago. The first decree was signed by then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül during the first months of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government with the demand of support from National View Organizations and Turkish schools operated by the Gülen community.

Zaman said the members of the Gülen community and representatives of its affiliated organizations were not invited to the celebrations of the April 23 National Sovereignty and Children Fest by the embassies, in a first sign of the implementation of Davutoğlu’s decree.

Foreign Ministry officials preferred to remain tight-lipped and not comment on the annulment, the paper said, but quoted an anonymous Turkish ambassador as saying, “The speech delivered by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the ambassadors’ conference and the annulment of this decree is already a clear message.”

The relations between once allies, the AKP government and the Gülen movement have deteriorated and turned into an open struggle following the launch of a massive corruption and graft operation that engulfed four of Erdoğan’s ministers, Erdoğan himself and his family as well. Accusing the Gülen community of attempting a plot against the government, Erdoğan described its leader, Gülen, a self-exiled Islamic scholar in the U.S., as the head of an illegal organization and the architect of this treacherous act against the Turkish state.

Erdoğan said the activities of the Gülen community abroad were dangerous and he will ask his foreign interlocutors to take the necessary measures against them.

Source: hurriyet daily news

May/20/2014

Turkish mafia accuses the Islamist Gülen of being behind the assassination of Hrant Dink

May 15, 2014 By administrator

By: Krikor Amirzayan

Turkish mafia, Kyurtach Yilmaz has initiated legal action against the Islamist organization Gülen for “terrorist organization” also accusing him of ordering the assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. According to the Turkish newspaper Sabah, K. Yilmaz also found that the former and current judge of the Court of Istanbul and many other political figures in the country are members of the organization Gülen. Kyurtach Yilmaz said that in 2004 a II (anonymous) an official of Gillen movement in Ankara and services member Turkish-secrets contacted him and proposed to murder Hrant Dink. K. Yilmaz says he tried in vain to put all these elements in the investigation by the Court of Istanbul on the assassination of Dink. But his testimony he had said not been included in the investigation. “When I refused the contract Dink’s assassination in 2005 I was arrested,” he adds. He also says that tribunal members collaborated with the criminal world. Fethullah Gülen founder of the Turkish Gulen Islamic movement, also called Hizmet (“Service”) movement, lives since 1999 in Pennsylvania, USA, where he was exiled.

Krikor Amirzayan