BFP Exclusive: Turkish Power Struggle Impedes NATO’s Campaign in Syria

March 29, 2014 By administrator

By Christoph Germann | March 29, 2014
Gülen Movement Determined to Topple Erdoğan at All Costs

Since the end of last year, Turkey has been engulfed in a spectacular power struggle between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the shadowy network of self-described “imam, preacher, and civil society activist” Fethullah Gülen. Due to the help of his friends in Langley, like for example Graham Fuller and Morton Abramowitz [1], Gülen managed to build a multi-billion dollar movement with millions of followers and a presence in 150 countries.[2]

The Gülen movement, also known as Hizmet, used its considerable influence in Turkey to launch an all-out attack on former ally Erdoğan at the end of last year, after the Turkish Prime Minister had fallen out of favor with Gülen and Washington.[3] When last December’s corruption scandal failed to bring down the government, Hizmet tried to discredit Erdoğan by exposing his role in supporting terrorism. At the end of last year, Gülen’s mouthpiece Today’s Zaman started to highlight the connection between Saudi terrorist financier Yasin al-Qadi and the AKP government as well as the Erdoğan family.[4] Although al-Qadi’s activities in Turkey had been known for years, Hizmet spared no efforts to highlight the al-Qadi-Erdoğan connection in the media but, as discussed previously, the coverage ignored a few important points:

“Gülen-controlled media have publicized much of this in last few days but they will not dare to mention that al-Qadi is a Gladio B operative who had previously the backing of Fethullah Gülen and that he took part in the now infamous pre-9/11 meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, where illustrious characters like Bandar bin Sultan and Ayman al-Zawahiri showed up. After all, the Gülen movement itself plays a central role in the Pentagon’s Operation Gladio B.”[5]

This also explains why Yasin al-Qadi could continue to conduct business with impunity in Turkey, Azerbaijan and other countries despite funding Ptech Inc. and ending up on several terrorist lists. The “terrorist” label, which had been removed in the meantime, is now being applied again and al-Qadi’s friend Erdoğan faces the same problem. Other terrorist supporters like the former U.S. Ambassadors to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, who are featured in Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery along with Graham Fuller, emphasized that Erdoğan’s days are over.[6] So Hizmet has resorted to drastic measures in order to topple the disgraced Turkish Prime Minister.

2014 started with a bombshell. Utilizing their enormous influence in the Turkish police, Gülen’s followers stopped a truck carrying weapons and ammunition on its way to Syria. The truck was escorted by members of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and allegedly hired by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH).[7] İHH has a long history of supporting terrorists in accordance with U.S. foreign policy from Afghanistan to Bosnia and Chechnya.[8] Given Turkey’s key role in the NATO-GCC-Israel campaign to remove the Syrian government, this arms shipment is hardly surprising. What makes this incident so remarkable is that this campaign and Turkey’s involvement were exposed by the Gülen movement, which is otherwise supporting NATO’s war in Syria. The Erdoğan-led government responded immediately by removing the police officers who had followed and stopped the truck in Turkey’s Hatay Province.[9] Other purges followed and by now thousands of police officers and several prosecutors have been removed or transferred in the ongoing power struggle.[10]

Hizmet subsequently focused on leaking recordings of wiretapped conversations, which highlight the corrupt and criminal activities of Erdoğan and his associates. Faced with one embarrassing leak after another, the Turkish Prime Minister turned to his former friends in Washington and asked for support. Pro-Erdoğan media alleged that he got a positive response and that Fethullah Gülen could possibly be extradited to Turkey.[11] But the White House lost no time in denying these reports and demonstrated its support of the U.S.-based Imam and his vast movement.[12] Meanwhile, the leaks continued exposing more and more explosive information:

Turkish Airlines allegedly shipped weapons to unknown groups in Nigeria, which has been ravaged by violence between the army and Boko Haram militants, a new incriminating phone call revealed on Tuesday.

The leaked conversation is the latest blow to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been hit by a corruption probe ensnaring his key allies and a widening phone-tapping scandal.[13]

Erdoğan tried to prevent the leaks from spreading via social media by banning Twitter, to no avail. Instead he drew heavy criticism from all over the world further damaging his approval ratings, which have been declining rapidly over the past months.[14] With Turkey’s local elections just a few days away, Hizmet decided to deliver a final blow. On March 27, another audio recording incriminating Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and other high-level officials was leaked:

The voices of the illegal recording believed to belong to Davutoğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Hakan Fidan, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Gürel.[15]

According to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, the disclosed meeting had taken place at FM Davutoğlu’s office, where the officials were discussing the security situation in Syria. But the content of the audio recording has to be taken with a grain of salt. PM Erdoğan has regularly defended himself by saying that the leaked tapes were manipulated to give a false impression [16] and, as FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cautioned, there is some truth to this claim when it comes to the latest leak:

“The tape/audio has been heavily tampered with; if authentic, then they have taken statements/conversations from several different contexts and time frames, and then they’ve patched them together after sanitizing, censoring. For example: you don’t hear any mention of US/NATO or the Pentagon, yet they left the part with the UN in there …”

If taken at face value, the audio recording is absolutely damning, especially considering the fact that the al-Qaeda mercenaries of the NATO-GCC-Israel axis are losing ground in Syria and Turkey’s willingness to get militarily involved.[17] In order to justify an intervention in Syria, Davutoğlu & Co. allegedly discussed selling the idea that Turkey has to protect the tomb of Süleyman Shah, a historic shrine that is under Turkish jurisdiction but located inside Syria’s northern Aleppo province, from Islamist insurgents. Head of Turkish intelligence Hakan Fidan proposed staging a false flag to lend credence to this ridiculous idea:

Ahmet Davutoğlu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”

Hakan Fida: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: “That’s what I told back there. For one thing, the situation is different. An operation on ISIL has solid ground on international law. We’re going to portray this is Al-Qaeda, there’s no distress there if it’s a matter regarding Al-Qaeda. And if it comes to defending Suleiman Shah Tomb, that’s a matter of protecting our land.”[18]

Just one day before the fateful leak, Turkish FM Davutoğlu was busy selling the terrorist threat in an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse.[19] Simultaneously, pro- Erdoğan newspaper Daily Sabah took the same line: “Al-Qaeda Offshoot ISIL, A New Terror Threat For Turkey”.[20] In this context, Hizmet’s manipulated audio recording appears authentic but we have to consider the source, Gülen’s CIA-sponsored movement, which is now clearly prioritizing toppling Turkish PM Erdoğan over toppling Syrian President Assad. In a clear reference to Gülen’s shadowy network, Davutoğlu blamed a “parallel structure inside [the state]” for the leak and vowed to investigate “everybody and everything”.[21] Shortly thereafter, the first suspect, a Gülen-linked columnist, was detained.[22] Erdoğan’s response was to block YouTube, where all leaked recordings had been uploaded.[23] So the Western media could not ignore the incident. But the reporting focused entirely on Erdoğan’s passion for censorship instead of addressing the real issue: Hizmet had again exposed the terror campaign of the NATO-GCC-Israel axis in Syria in order to get rid of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan.

# # # #

Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst
Christoph Germann is an independent analyst and researcher based in Germany, where he is currently studying political science. His work focuses on the New Great Game in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. You can visit his website here

[1] Sibel Edmonds, “Did You Know: The King of Madrasas Now Operates Over 100 Charter Schools in the US?,” Boiling Frogs Post, 20 October 2010: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/20/did-you-know-the-king-of-madrasas-now-operates-over-100-charter-schools-in-the-us/.

[2] Tim Franks, “Fethullah Gulen: Powerful but reclusive Turkish cleric,” BBC, 27 January 2014: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25885817.

[3] Sibel Edmonds, “Turkish PM Erdogan: The Speedy Transformation of an Imperial Puppet,” Boiling Frogs Post, 18 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/18/turkish-pm-erdogan-the-speedy-transformation-of-an-imperial-puppet/.

[4] “Report: Al-Qaeda suspects flee after Turkish gov’t blocks raid,” Today’s Zaman, 26 December 2013: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-335038-report-al-qaeda-suspects-flee-after-turkish-govt-blocks-raid.html.

[5] Christoph Germann, “The New Great Game Round-Up: January 5, 2014,” Boiling Frogs Post, 5 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/05/the-new-great-game-round-up-january-5-2014/.

[6] Sibel Edmonds, “CIA-Gladio’s Zionist Operatives Urge Obama to Overthrow Erdogan’s Administration,” Boiling Frogs Post, 23 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/23/cia-gladios-zionist-operatives-urge-obama-to-overthrow-erdogans-administration/.

[7] Fevzi Kızılkoyun, “Turkish governor blocks police search on Syria-bound truck reportedly carrying weapons,” Hürriyet, 2 January 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-governor-blocks-police-search-on-syria-bound-truck-reportedly-carrying-weapons-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=60494&NewsCatID=341.

[8] Ibid., Germann.

[9] “Police officers removed after stopping truck allegedly carrying weapons to Syria,” Hürriyet, 3 January 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/police-officers-removed-after-stopping-truck-allegedly-carrying-weapons-to-syria.aspx?pageID=238&nID=60522&NewsCatID=341.

[10] Constanze Letsch, “Turkish police caught in middle of war between Erdoğan and former ally Gülen,” The Guardian, 9 February 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/09/turkish-police-fethullah-gulen-network.

[11] “Gülen Could Be Extradited To Turkey,” Daily Sabah, 14.03.2014: http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/03/14/gulen-could-be-extradited-to-turkey.

[12] Tolga TANIŞ, “Turkish PM’s account of Obama’s Gülen response ‘not accurate,’ White House says,” Hürriyet, 8 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pms-account-of-obamas-gulen-response-not-accurate-white-house-says-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63341&NewsCatID=359.

[13] “Turkish Airlines allegedly ships arms to Nigeria, tape reveals,” Agence France-Presse, 18 March 2014: http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-airlines-allegedly-ships-arms-nigeria-tape-reveals-202353840.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory.

[14] Terri Rupar, “Turkey’s prime minister banned Twitter, but these images show he can still muster huge crowds,” The Washington Post, 24 March 2014: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/24/turkeys-prime-minister-banned-twitter-but-these-images-show-he-can-still-muster-huge-crowds/.

[15] “WRAP UP: Ankara on alert after spying on security meeting leaked,” Hürriyet, 27 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/wrap-up-ankara-on-alert-after-spying-on-security-meeting-leaked.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64190&NewsCatID=338.

[16] Ralph Boulton, “Ahead of vote, Erdogan paints picture of Turkey besieged by enemies,” Reuters, 27 March 2014: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-turkey-election-idUSBREA2Q0XG20140327.

[17] Tony Cartalucci, “Turkey Vs. Syria: NATO’s Last Gasp?,” New Eastern Outlook, 26.03.2014: http://journal-neo.org/2014/03/26/turkey-vs-syria-nato-s-last-gasp/.

[18] Mimi al Laham, “Leaks Reveal Turkey using ALQaeda for False flag in Syria,” SyriaNews, 27 March 2014: http://www.syrianews.cc/leaks-reveal-turkey-using-alqaeda-false-flag-syria/.

[19] “Turkey vows ‘any measures’ against Syria threats,” Hürriyet, 26 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-vows-any-measures-against-syria-threats.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64135&NewsCatID=338.

[20] “Al-Qaeda Offshoot ISIL, A New Terror Threat For Turkey,” Daily Sabah, 26 March 2014: http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2014/03/26/alqaeda-offshoot-isil-a-new-terror-threat-for-turkey.

[21] “Turkey’s FM implies espionage from within ministry over Syria leak,” Hürriyet, 28 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkeys-fm-implies-espionage-from-within-ministry-over-syria-leak.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64232&NewsCatID=338.

[22] “Gülen-linked pundit detained over leak of key Syria meeting,” Hürriyet, 29 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/gulen-linked-pundit-detained-over-leak-of-key-syria-meeting.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64274&NewsCatID=338.

[23] Paul Vale, “Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan Moves To Block YouTube Following Similar Ban On Twitter,” The Huffington Post, 27 March 2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/27/turkey-erdogan-youtube-twitter_n_5044280.html.
– See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/29/bfp-exclusive-turkish-power-struggle-impedes-natos-campaign-in-syria/#sthash.ceLnqYEU.dpuf

10 things you need to know about Turkey

March 29, 2014 By administrator

By Claire Berlinski Published March 28, 2014

Here are ten things you need to know about Turkey.

1. On March 27, the government of Turkey blocked YouTube, less than a week after blacking out Twitter. Ostensibly, this was to prevent the spread of videos that are said to feature the voices of Turkey’s foreign minister, intelligence chief, and a top army general proposing to send the Turkish military into Syria to protect the tomb of Suleiman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty.

2. If these tapes are real, Turkey has been considering staging an attack on itself as a pretext to intervene in Syria. Turkey is a member of NATO. Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty establishing the alliance states that members will treat an attack against one member as an attack against all and respond accordingly—up to and including the use of armed force. Were NATO to provide assistance to Turkey, the consequences could be apocalyptic. Among other things, Russia would certainly see this as a NATO aggression.

3. Turkey’s ruling AKP is facing a disaster in Syria. Turkey’s battle with the radical Kurdish-separatist PKK has claimed as many as 40,000 lives since the 1980s.

When Assad pulled his forces away from the border, the PYD (the Syrian analogue to the PKK) assumed control over the Kurdish majority regions, prompting Ankara to attempt to counter them by arming radical Islamist groups and opening its borders to foreign fighters.

The Turks presumed Assad would be toppled quickly, which proved false.

As a result, Turkey now faces both an infuriated Assad and a serious threat from groups like Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS).

Following the seizure by ISIS of the Azaz border gate, Ankara reversed course, freezing Al Qaeda bank accounts and shelling ISIS strongholds along the border. But the damage can’t easily be undone.

In conjunction with a vast influx of Syrian refugees, this is now by far the most serious security problem Turkey faces. Since Turkey is in NATO, this is NATO’s problem, too.

4. Of late, Erdoğan’s struggle for power with Fethullah Gülen, a Pennsylvania-based cleric who leads a powerful transnational Islamist movement and is a major player in the American charter school movement, has become increasingly vicious. It has recently taken the form of a massive corruption probe into government officials, with wiretaps leaked daily that appear to incriminate the prime minister and everyone around him in a three-ring circus of malfeasance, skullduggery, and theft.

The leaks are widely, and for good reason, understood to be a form of retaliation by the Gülenists, who are well represented within the police and judiciary.

Erdoğan has countered by stifling journalists, firing or reassigning thousands of police officers, consolidating his control of the judiciary, and shutting down social media sites in a vain attempt to plug the leaks.

5. Gülen presides over a huge informal network of schools, think tanks, businesses, and media across five continents. His network in Turkey until recently worked in close alliance with Erdoğan as he neutralized the opposition, particularly in the military.

Gülen’s enthusiasm for illegal wiretapping and leaking didn’t bother Erdoğan when it worked in his favor. Nor did Erdoğan’s demagoguery and propensity to suppress speech bother the Gülenists.

6. The leaked recordings (which have not been independently verified) feature a voice, purportedly Erdoğan’s, dictating news headlines, choosing guests to appear on news shows, telling a media executive to reduce his coverage of the opposition, upbraiding another for using the word “corruption” in a news report, and calling his justice minister to discuss reversing a legal judgment in favor of a critical media firm.

7. One of the most explosive tapes, published on February 25, features conversation between voices alleged to be those of the prime minister and his son, Bilal. They are heard discussing how best to hide tens of millions of dollars in cash stored in the family home. The prime minister instructs his son to get rid of all the money, preferably after dark. His son says he has moved all but $41.6 million.

8. Erdoğan has accused foreign forces of inventing the corruption charges. As the corruption scandal broke, a newspaper known as a government organ splashed a photograph of the U.S. ambassador on its front page with the headline, “Get the hell out of this country!”

9. Local elections, on March 30, will be followed by Turkey’s first direct presidential election in 2014, and parliamentary elections in 2015. There is no reason to think these elections will bring stability, whatever the outcome.

The Gülenists will not be satisfied until Erdoğan is imprisoned or dead. A significant portion of the population will not believe the election results nor recognize any mandate Erdoğan claims.

10. There is good reason to be concerned about the fairness of the elections, and if not the fairness, the public’s perception of their unfairness. Given the new technology to be employed in the voting booths, the stakes, and the release of wiretaps suggesting Erdoğan’s willingness to break the law to suit his personal ends, it is unsurprising that many in Turkey are warning of the possibility of electoral fraud.

Should the elections be tainted by any hint of malfeasance, we should expect protests on the scale of those following Iran’s 2009 elections, and we should expect that they will be suppressed in much the same manner.

Claire Berlinski is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal magazine. She is an investigative journalist, travel writer, biographer, and novelist. She is a former resident of Istanbul.

Source: FOX News

Istanbul police raid Gülenist firms

March 27, 2014 By administrator

By Toygun Atilla ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

The financial crime unit of the Istanbul Police Department has raided the firms of a corporation reportedly linked to the Gülen movement.

Police officers raided Kaynak Holding’s headquarters in Üsküdar’s Bulgurlu neighborhood and Bağcılar’s Mahmutbey neighborhood early on March 27, confiscating documents and computers. The inspection continued until the morning.

Kaynak Holding is a corporation with almost 7,000 employees and 1.5 billion Turkish Liras in annual revenue. It has 23 firms in 16 business sectors, operating in the areas of education, publications, cargo and information technology.

The raid was triggered by an informant who reportedly works as a manager for the corporation. The operation is focused on Sürat Kargo and the firms related to information technology, it has been learned.

Kanaltürk license cancelled

Meanwhile, the Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) has canceled the national broadcast license of Kanaltürk television in a move that will significantly reduce Kanaltürk’s advertising revenue. The channel is one of many inspired by Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülen movement and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ally-turned-nemesis.

March/27/2014

Altruistic Society or Sect?: The Shadowy World of the Islamic Gülen Movement (‘You Must Move in the Arteries of the System’)

February 9, 2013 By administrator

SPIEGEL online

By Maximilian Popp

The Gülen movement has two sides: One that faces the world and another that hides from it. Its finances are particularly murky. Rich businessmen donate millions, but civil servants and skilled manual workers also contribute to the financing of Gülen projects. Fethullahcis donate an average of 10 percent of their income to the community, with some giving up to 70 percent.

Gülen likes to portray himself as a modest preacher akin to a Muslim Gandhi. One of his mantras is: “Build schools instead of mosques.”

But before he moved to the United States, Gülen treated the West as the enemy. “Until the day of judgment,” he wrote in his book “Cag ve Nesil” (This Era and the Young Generation), “Westerners will exhibit no human behavior.” Gülen condemned Turks who embraced Europe as “freeloaders,” “parasites” and “leukemia.” In a November 2011 video message, he called upon the Turkish military to attack Kurdish separatists: “Locate them, surround them, break up their units, let fire rain down upon their houses, drown out their lamentations with even more wails, cut off their roots and put an end to their cause.”

Gülen also disputes the theory of evolution, calling it “unscientific” and an “illusion.” He believes that scientific facts are only true if they agree with the Koran.

Calls for a New Muslim Age

Gülen grew up as the son of a village imam in Anatolia. He studied at a mosque in Erzurum, a city in eastern Turkey, together with Cemaleddin Kaplan, who would later move to Germany where he was known as the “Caliph of Cologne” because of his radical preaching. At the same time, Gülen encountered the teachings of Said Nursi, a Kurdish Sufi preacher, and joined his community.

When Ankara, in its fight against communism in the 1980s, invoked the ideology of the “Turkish-Islamic synthesis,” Gülen seized the opportunity. He founded schools in Turkey and abroad, and he became an adviser to the strictly secular prime minister, Tansu Ciller.

In one of his sermons, he called upon his students to establish a new Muslim age. He advised his supporters to undermine the Turkish state and act conspiratorially until the time was ripe to assume power. “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they (the followers) must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere. (…) You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power (…) Until that time, any step taken would be too early — like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.”

When a recording of this speech was leaked to the public in 1999, Gülen had to flee from Turkey. He claims that his words were manipulated. He has been living in exile in the United States ever since.

No Address and No Bank Account

His movement has no address, no mailbox, no registration and no central bank account. Gülen supporters don’t demonstrate for sharia and jihad, and the cemaat operates in secret. Gülen, the godfather, determines the movement’s direction. Some members within the inner circle of power have been serving Gülen for decades. They control the most important organizations within the movement, the publishing houses and foundations. Within the cemaat, individual world regions, like Central Asia and Europe, are managed by a “brother.” The hierarchy extends all the way down to national and local “brothers” in city neighborhoods.

Gülen’s influence in Turkey was enhanced when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s conservative Islamic party, the AKP, won the Turkish parliamentary election in 2002. Observers believe that the two camps entered into a strategic partnership at first, with Gülen providing the AKP with votes while Erdogan protected the cemaat. According to information obtained by US diplomats, almost a fifth of the AKP’s members of parliament were members of the Gülen movement in 2004, including the justice and culture ministers.

Many civil servants act at the behest of the “Gülen brothers,” says a former senior member. “They were our students. We trained and supported them. When these grateful children assume office, they continue to serve Gülen.” In 2006, former police chief Adil Serdar Sacan estimated that the Fethullahcis held more than 80 percent of senior positions in the Turkish police force. “The assertion that the TNP (Turkish National Police) is controlled by Gulenists is impossible to confirm but we have found no one who disputes it,” wrote James Jeffrey, the then US ambassador in Ankara, in a 2009 cable.

Good Muslims

Ercan Karakoyun is the face of the Gülen community in Germany. The 31-year-old runs the Forum for Intercultural Dialogue (FID) in Berlin, which has Gülen as its honorary chairman. Karakoyun, the son of Turkish immigrants, meets with visitors in an office at the city’s prestigious Potsdamer Platz which has light-blue carpeting and plain, functional furniture. The bookshelf contains works by Gülen, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “The Bible in Fair Language” (a new German translation of the Bible which aims to be free of gender bias and anti-Semitism) and a book by the late German Protestant theologian Heinz Zahrnt. The book selection seems balanced and judicious, with a little of everything and nothing too controversial. It seems intended to convey the following message to visitors: Look, we’re good Muslims. We mourn the dead of the Holocaust, we are interested in theological discussions of Christianity and we are democrats.

Karakoyun found his way to the movement through a “brother” who addressed him in front of a mosque in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia when he was a teenager. He began reading Gülen’s books. He accompanied the “brother” to Turkey and became involved in the cemaat, recruiting new members at the university and in high schools. He rose up through the hierarchy until he became a “brother” himself.

Speaking in eloquent German, Karakoyun says that whenever he and his Gülen community organize events, they receive letters, emails and calls from what he terms “the usual suspects” — people who want to harm the movement and see it as a dangerous sect. He characterizes all of this as “conspiracy theories.’

Karakoyun divides the world into two groups: “critics” and “sympathizers.” As examples of critics, he cites Western Islamophobes, Turkish ultranationalists and the terrorists of the Kurdish PKK. Sympathizers, he says, are all people who are interested in “dialogue, tolerance and peaceful coexistence for the benefit of all.”

‘Anyone who Messes with Gülen Is Destroyed’

All of this sounds harmless, tolerant and peaceful. But Ilhan Cihaner experienced in Turkey what can happen to critics. “Anyone who messes with Gülen is destroyed,” says the former chief prosecutor. He has been a hero among secular Turks since he investigated the Gülen community in 2007. Cihaner says that he had received information about illegal financial transactions within the cemaat. But then, in response to pressure from the government, he was taken off the case. He was arrested in 2010.

Cihaner was accused of being a member of the ultranationalist Ergenekon organization, a group of conspirators who had allegedly planned to overthrow the government. Even Cihaner’s political rivals believe that the charges against him were absurd. The former prosecutor had acquired a reputation for his staunch campaigns against mafia-like networks. And now he was being accused of working with Ergenekon and planning to plant weapons in dormitories where Gülen supporters lived so as to discredit the movement. The prosecution based its case on statements by anonymous witnesses. Cihaner was eventually released because of insufficient evidence against him. He is now a member of the opposition in the Turkish parliament.

Istanbul-based journalist Ahmet Sik suffered a similar fate. He was arrested in March 2011, shortly before his book about the Gülen movement, “Imamin Ordusu,” (“The Imam’s Army”), was to be published. Security forces searched the offices of his publishing house, and the manuscript, in which Sik describes how the Gülen movement has allegedly infiltrated the police and the judiciary in Turkey, was confiscated. The investigative reporter was charged with being a member of Ergenekon. Ironically, it was Sik who, together with a colleague, had exposed the secret coup plans of an Ergenekon admiral in the weekly magazine Nokta in 2007 and who had repeatedly targeted the Ergenekon network. Sik was released a few months ago, following international protests.

In September 2010, Hanefi Avci, a former Turkish police chief and former Gülen sympathizer, was arrested and accused of having participated in the Ergenekon conspiracy. He had just published a book in which he accused Gülen members in the police of illegally wiretapping their enemies’ telephone conversations and manipulating trials.

Lies and Manipulation

There is no evidence that Gülen was behind the arrests. He lives a reclusive life in the Pennsylvania mountains and behaves as if the accusations have nothing to do with him. He declined a request to be interviewed by SPIEGEL.

Others speak on his behalf, like Mahmut Cebi, the former editor-in-chief of the pro-Gülen newspaper Zaman, whose office is in the World Media Group building in Offenbach near Frankfurt. Cebi built up the European edition of Zaman and has worked as an writer for the publishing company since April. The European edition has about 30,000 subscribers in Germany alone.

Cebi and Zaman explain to readers what the world looks like from the perspective of the cemaat. The newspaper prints the writings of Gülen and excerpts from his sermons and poems. Critics accuse Zaman of deliberately spreading false reports to harm Gülen’s opponents.

When politicians in Germany’s far-left Left Party criticized Gülen’s remarks on the Kurds a few weeks ago, Zaman claimed that the Left Party supports the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“The movement is up to its neck in dirty tricks,” Dani Rodrik, a professor of international political economy at Harvard University, said in a recent interview. Zaman, he added, supports this “mafia” with “false and misleading accounts” and “manipulations.” “There is no disinformation they will not peddle to further the causes they support,” said Rodrik.

Cebi denies all accusations. His newspaper is guided by Gülen’s ideals, he says, but it doesn’t take orders from him. Gülen is not a sect leader, says Çebi. Instead, he compares him to one of Germany’s leading public intellectuals: “He’s a philosopher like Habermas.”

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan