Yesterday, at night, in Yasamal district of Baku the police implemented a raid during which 41 Nur members were detained, Azerbaijani news portal “Haqqin.az” reports.

“In fact, the ephemeral threat towards nursizm has acquired realistic shapes, and now not only journalists, but also the security forces are involved in it,” notes the site.

As Police Department of Yasamal district told “Haqqin.az”, this raid was planned to be implemented a week ago. According to the information that the police had, a few hundred members of the Nur sect were periodically attending a two-story house located in one of the most popular door curtain shops in Baku “Capsella.” They were listened there to sermons and addresses of their leader, Fethullah Gulen. It is noteworthy that the owner of the house, which actually was turned into a den of Nurs in Baku, is still not known.

“Being informed that there were about three hundred Nurs gathered in the house, the Police Department began to develop a plan for capturing them. However, their plan foiled for some unknown reasons,” reads the article.

Despite the failure of the plan, which could become the biggest one in Azerbaijani history by the number of the detained people, the police developed another plan, the portal writes. However, only 41 Nurs were caught by the security forces this time. Most of them were released after the first interrogation.

It is noted also that the police has got an extensive literature of Nur, audio tracks of Nur leader of the Fethullah Gülen and other materials for ideological propaganda.

Only nine members of sect were kept at the police station. According to the security officials they will be re-released after one more interrogation, “Haqqin.az” writes.

According to an anonymous member of a sect, the detainees are really Nur members, but they are not related to F. Gulen “jemaat”.
“The house where they were detained is a private property. They were doing there namaz and were reading books,” said the source.
Note that recently Azerbaijani media, particularly the newspaper “Yeni Musavat” has disseminated information that the official circles of Turkey have provided the Azerbaijani government with a list of high-ranking officials of Azerbaijan in the administration of President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani government, which include or are related with such religious direction, as Nursizm.

The list of officials recruited by the sect of Fethullah Gülen include, the head of Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Elnur Aslanov, SOCAR vice president Khalig Mammadov, chairman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Elshad Isgandarov, his deputy Gunduz Ismailov, Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Intigam Babayev, MP Jeyhun Osmanli, CSR Director under the Presidential Administration Farhad Mammadov, Chairman of the Youth Foundation Farhad Hajiyev.

Nur sect leader is Turkish billionaire Fethullah Gülen. He also owns large industrial and financial companies and holdings worldwide.
Gülen owns a large network of schools and educational institutions. In 1998, Gülen was accused of attempting to overthrow the existing regime in secular Turkey. At the same time avoiding the punishment, he immigrated to the United States. When the AKP came to power all charges against him were dropped. Turkish Prime Minister R. T. Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party are accused of having ties to Gülen. According to various estimates, about five million people in Turkey and abroad (particularly in Azerbaijan and Central Asia) are involved in the Gülen movement.