by Ganesh Sahathevab
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has congratulated Turkey's President Recep Tayip Erdogan on his re-election. In his victory speech Erdogan made a number of references to the FETO terrorist group led by Fetullah Gulen, clearly indentifying Gulen as an enemy of Turkey.
Meanwhile NSW Governor Margaret Beazley continues to affirm her support for the Gulen movement, as she has for the past decade despite concerns in Turkey about Gulen and his movement
To Be Read WIth
Saturday, August 27, 2022
NSW Governor Margaret Beazley affirms support for Gulen movement despite Turkey designating Gulen a terrorist organisation
by Ganesh Sahathevan
NSW Governor Margaret Beazley has affirmed her support for the Gulen movement by officiating at the Charles Sturt-ICRA ceremony to mark the continued working relationship between CSU and ICRA. ICRA is part of the international Fetuulah Gulen movement, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey.
The Gulen movement's influencing activities are well documented, and well within Australia's foreign interference laws, but Beazley has chosen to ignore this issue as well.
Many have sought to portray Gulen and his movement as innocent victims but even The Economist had to admit:
Fethullah Gulen shares blame for Turkey’s plight
The exiled imam did much to cripple democracy
Governor Beazley has openly supported the Gulen movement, and continues to do so despite the designation of that group as a terrorist movement.
TO BE READ WITH
by Ganesh Sahathevan
The NSW Government continues to openly support the Gulen movement and its local arm ,the Affinity Intercultural Group despite objections from Turkey.
The Turkish Government has declared the Gulen movement a terrorist organisation which it has named the
Fetullah, Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO).
Gülenist terror group (FETÖ) leader Fetullah Gülen
Turkey's Turning Point
The NSW Government continues to openly support the Gulen movement and its local arm ,the Affinity Intercultural Group despite objections from Turkey.
The Turkish Government has declared the Gulen movement a terrorist organisation which it has named the
Fetullah, Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO).
Malaysia deported FETO members in 2017,while Indonesian clerics have issued a fatwa declaring FETO haram (see article below).The AG NSW Mark Speakman needs to explain why he feels he knows better than our Muslim neighbours. He is the Minister in charge of "keeping us safe from terrorism"We have a right to know why he makes the Gulen movement welcome in our parliament.
END
References.
Indonesian Islamic scholars council declares FETÖ
activities haram; calls on Muslims to unite against
Gülen
Saying that the ‘heretic’ Fetullah Gülen has deviated from the main pillars of Islam and distorted the teachings of prominent scholar Said Nursi, the Indonesian Ulema have called on all Muslims to stay away from FETÖ, and all Muslim heads of state to ban the group
It is forbidden (haram) to be involved in all the movements and activities of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) leader Fetullah Gülen and his followers around the world, the Council of Ulema Tariqas of Indonesia said in a fatwa on Friday, calling on all Muslims and heads of state of Islamic countries to unite against them.
"We invite and urge Fetullah Gülen and his followers to repent to Allah SWT and account for their actions towards Muslims in the world, especially what has happened in Turkey on July 15, 2016," the fatwa said in reference to the bloody coup attempt perpetrated by the group.
Stating that Gülen, who has lived in the U.S. since 1999 in self-imposed exile, has distorted the meanings of Quranic verses and the teachings of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him), the country's top Muslim clerical body said that the FETÖ leader also deviated from Republican era scholar Said Nursi's teachings.
"Fetullah Gülen has deviated a lot in interpreting the verses of the Qur'an, and his teachings and thoughts can damage the Islamic Aqedah based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad," the fatwa said, adding "Early in spreading his teachings, Fetullah Gülen taught in the name of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, but after being researched and studied in the past few years, it turned out to have deviated from Bediuzzaman Said Nursi's teachings themselves."
Regarding Gülen's use of Said Nursi's legacy, the council said that the terrorist leader only tried to "attract the sympathy of Muslims especially among the youth and campus activists."
"Fetullah Gülen with all his actions and thoughts on Islam, especially about Sufis, is a heresy that will damage the Sufi values themselves."
Underscoring that the FETÖ is not just a movement or a socio-religious organization, the council further reiterated that it is indeed "more directed to the form of terrorist organizations hiding behind a mask of social and religious movements that have closeness to the Zionists."
In the verdict of the fatwa, the council voiced the call on Gülen and his followers to "repent to Allah SWT and account for their actions towards Muslims in the world."
Recommending to the President of Indonesia, all heads of state in Islamic countries and Muslim scholars in every country in the world "to be able to unite and jointly stop all forms of Fetullah Gülen activities in their respective countries, including by prohibiting the circulation of books by Fetullah Gülen," the body said these measures were important to protect the people from Gülen's distortion of Islamic teachings.
The FETÖ, a criminal enterprise founded by fugitive Fetullah Gülen, has been directly implicated in the December 2013 judicial coup attempt and the July 15, 2016 military coup attempt against the democratically elected government of Turkey.
With its media and business arms, the terrorist group created significant public clout, which was augmented by infiltration in state institutions, principally the judiciary, police and military. Many of its most senior members fled abroad on the eve or soon after the coup attempt in 2016.
Dating back to the 1960s, the FETÖ was the brainchild of Gülen who served as a primary school educated imam before founding the group, which has always acted as a secretive cult.
The 1970s and 1980s were spent consolidating the group, creating the necessary education and financial structure, while slowly infiltrating state institutions. Its schools and prep schools served as the main recruiting ground for the group, which assigned particular degrees and vocations to its members.
Its leadership hierarchy was hidden from the public, apart from Gülen himself. The FETÖ, like many terrorist groups, created a structure based on individual cells within various state organizations, like the judiciary, police and military.
Cells of various sizes were each organized around an imam, often an academic or police officer. It was normal practice for FETÖ member generals, prosecutors and judges to receive orders from an academic or teacher. Group hierarchy always trumped civilian hierarchy.
Over the years, the FETÖ transformed into a behemoth, with finance, business, education and media arms spread across the globe. It has charter schools in the U.S., mainly used to collect and siphon federal funds for various FETÖ projects, while its schools in the rest of the world are usually used for recruiting.
Gülen is viewed as a sort of messiah by his followers, according to former members.
Turkey's Turning Point
Could there be an Islamic Revolution in Turkey?
by Michael Rubin
National Review Online
April 14, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/
National Review Online
April 14, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/
Few U.S. policymakers have heard of Fethullah Gülen, perhaps Turkey's most prominent theologian and political thinker. Self-exiled for more than a decade, Gülen lives a reclusive life outside Philadelphia, Pa. Within months, however, he may be as much a household a name in the United States as is Ayatollah Khomeini, a man who was as obscure to most Americans up until his triumphant return to Iran almost 30 years ago.
Many academics and journalists embrace Gülen and applaud his stated vision welding Islam with tolerance and a pro-European outlook. Supporters describe him as progressive. In 2003, the University of Texas honored him as a "peaceful hero," alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama. Last October, the British House of Lords and several British diplomats celebrated Gülen at a high-profile London conference. Later this year, Georgetown University scholar John Esposito will host a conference dedicated to the movement. As in 2001, Esposito will cosponsor with the Rumi Forum, an organization Gülen serves as honorary president.
The Gülen movement controls charities, real estate, companies, and more than a thousand schools internationally. According to some estimates, the Gülen Movement controls several billion dollars. The movement claims its own universities, unions, lobbies, student groups, radio and television stations, and the Zaman newspaper. Turkish officials concede that Gülen's followers in Turkey number more than a million; Gülen's backers claim that number is just the tip of the iceberg. Today, Gülen members dominate the Turkish police and divisions within the interior ministry. Under the stewardship of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, one of Gülen's most prominent sympathizers, tens of thousands of other Gülen supporters have entered the Turkish bureaucracy.
While Gülen supporters jealously guard his image in the West, he remains a controversial figure in Turkey. According to Cumhuriyet, a left-of-center establishment daily — Turkey's New York Times — in 1973, the Izmir State Security Court convicted Gülen of "attempting to destroy the state system and to establish a state system based on religion;" he received a pardon, though, and so never served time in prison. In 1986, the Turkish military — the constitutional guardians of the state's secularism — purged a Gülen cell from the military academy; the Turkish military has subsequently acted against a number of other alleged Gülen cells who they say infiltrated military ranks.
In 1998, according to Turkish court transcripts cited in the Turkish Daily News, Gülen urged followers in the judiciary and state bureaucracy to "work patiently to take control of the state." The following year, the independent Turkish television station ATV broadcast a secretly taped Gülen telling supporters, "If they . . . come out early, the world will squash their heads. They will make Muslims relive events in Algeria," a reference to the Islamic Salvation Front's overwhelming 1991 election victory in the North African state. After party leaders spoke of voiding the constitution and implementing Islamic law, the Algerian military staged a coup leading to a civil conflict that killed tens of thousands.
Because of his statements and veiled threats, the judiciary in 1998 charged Gülen with trying to "undermine the secular system" while "camouflag[ing] his methods with a democratic and moderate image." Convicted in absentia, but free to run his organized from his U.S. exile, Gülen continues a rather inconsistent approach to tolerance and secularism. He often equates the separation of religion and state with atheism, an assertion many of Turkey's most secular officials find offensive: Believing that religion is best kept to the individual rather than state sphere does not equate with any lack of belief in God. In 2004, Gülen equated atheism with terrorism and said both atheists and murderers would spend eternity in Hell.
Gülen has received a legal break, however. In 2002, Erdoğan's Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kakınma Partisi, AKP) won a plurality in parliamentary elections and, because of a fluke in Turkish election law, was able to amplify one-third of the popular vote into a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Erdoğan used this advantage to enact reforms which had the net affect of stacking not only the civil service, but also banking boards and the judiciary with his political supporters and religious fundamentalists. Erdoğan's judges wasted no time. They placed liens against political opponents' property, seized independent newspapers and television stations including, not by coincidence ATV, and assigned sympathetic judges to hear appeals against earlier decisions levied against Islamists. On May 5, 2006, the Ankara Criminal Court overturned the verdict against Gülen. While a public prosecutor — a secularist hold-out — appealed the court's action, the process is now nearing conclusion. Gülen's supporters are ecstatic. His slate wiped clean, Gülen has indicated he may soon return to Turkey.
If he does, Istanbul 2008 may very well look like Tehran 1979. Just as Gülen's supporters affirm his altruistic intentions and see no inconsistency between a secretive, cell-based movement and transparent governance, too many Western journalists also give Gülen a free pass.
If this sounds familiar, it should: Three decades ago, the same phenomenon marked coverage of Iran. "I don't want to be the leader of the Islamic Republic; I don't want to have the government or power in my hands," Khomeini told a credulous Austrian television reporter during the ayatollah's brief sojourn in Paris. In November 1978, Steven Erlanger, the future New York Times foreign correspondent, penned a New Republic essay arguing that Khomeini's vision for Iran was essentially a "Platonic Republic with a grand ayatollah as a philosopher-king," and predicting the triumph of an independent liberal left worried more about labor conditions in Iran's oil fields than pursuing any theological tendency.
In Tehran then as in Ankara now, U.S. ambassadors preferred garden parties with the political elite and maintained contacts with only a narrow segment of the population. They were blind. As the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency remained clueless or belittled concerns about Khomeini's intentions, millions of Iranians turned out to greet their Imam at Tehran's international airport. Turks now say that similar crowds might greet Gülen when his plane touches down in Istanbul.
Gülen is careful. He will not order the dissolution of the Turkish Republic. But, ensconced in his Istanbul mansion, he could simply begin to issue fatwas prying Turkey farther from the secularism to which Erdoğan pays lip service. As Khomeini consciously drew parallels between himself and Twelver Shiism's Hidden Imam, Gülen will remain quiet as his supporters paint his return as evidence that the caliphate formally dissolved by Atatürk in 1924 has been restored.
The secular order and constitutionalism in Turkey have never been so shaky. The government now controls most television and radio stations. Erdoğan has gained the dubious distinction of launching more lawsuits against journalists and commentators than any previous Turkish prime minister.
As Erdoğan discourages dissent, his and Gülen's supporters among prominent Turkish columnists and commentators equate Islamism with democracy, and secularism with fascism, a line too many Western diplomats eager to demonstrate tolerance with an embrace of "moderate Islam" accept. Erdoğan himself has argued that it was secularism which led to Hitler; that Islamism would never produce such a result.
Last month, after one of the few independent judicial authorities filed a lawsuit against Erdoğan and the AKP for violating constitutional provisions separating religion from politics, the prime minister responded with a midnight round-up of leading academics and journalists who had criticized him. Even Erdoğan's supporters were shocked to wake up on March 21 to learn that İlhan Selçuk, the bed-ridden octogenarian editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet described by Turks as their Walter Cronkite had been arrested in a pre-dawn raid on charges of plotting to launch a military coup; the police have yet to provide any evidence. Nor is Selçuk the only victim in the most recent intimidation campaign. A Hürriyet columnist, Ahmet Hakan, has received threatening phone calls from lawyer Kemaletin Gülen, a relative of Fethullah.
When Islamists pursue campaigns of hatred, Western officials not only pretend nothing is amiss but also, as in the case of Palestinian leaders, often increase their support. This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the judicial case against Erdoğan and the AKP. Members of her staff suggest she will lend subtle support to the prime minister. Indeed, it may be tempting to condemn the court action as a political stunt: The prosecutor's legal brief is shoddily written and poorly argued. Despite its faults, however, the underlying legal issues are real.
Rice should be silent. Any interference will backfire: Turks, already upset that U.S. ambassador Ross Wilson seldom meets with opposition leaders, will interpret any criticism of the case as White House support for the AKP. Secularists will ask why Turkey's liberal opposition should not have the right to all legal remedies. They already ask why the West applauds legal action taken against Austrian populist Jörg Haider and French demagogue Jean Marie Le Pen, but the same U.S. and European officials appear to bless Erdoğan's legal exceptionalism. By undermining judicial recourse, Rice may accelerate violence and lead support to those who argue — wrongly — that the government's disdain for the law and constitution should be met with the same. On the off-chance, however, that Rice accepts that the court case should run its course, Turkey's religious conservatives will accuse her of masterminding the approach.
Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has made many mistakes. Bush was correct to recognize the importance of democratization; bungled implementation has turned a noble ideal into a dirty word. By equating democracy only with elections, the State Department and National Security Council fumbled U.S. interests in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. One man, one vote, once; parties that enforce discipline at the point of a gun; and politicians who seek to subvert the rule of law to an imam's conception of God do little for U.S. national security. Never again should the United States abandon its ideological compatriots for the ephemeral promises of parties that use religion to subvert democracy and seek mob rather than constitutional rule.
Turkey is nearing the cliff. Please, Secretary Rice, do not push it over the edge.
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
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