With the growth of Gulen schools worldwide. We had requests from around the world to start a second blog on the Gulen Turkish Schools worldwide. From Mexico to Iraq, and Africa to Afghanistan we will post the news stories and as usual amuse you at the same time. To contrast and compare we invite you to http://www.gulencharterschoolsUSA.blogspot.com http://www.charterschoolwatchdog.com http://www.charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com
Gulen Schools Worldwide
Restore the Ottoman Caliphate. Disclaimer: if some videos are down this is the result of Gulen censorship which filed a fake copyright infringement to UTUBE.
Coup probe takes aim at Turk scholars
AFP/Ankara
Turkish police yesterday raided the homes of several scholars and seized documents, in the latest episode in an increasingly controversial coup probe. In a surprise development, the lead prosecutor of the sprawling probe received promotion but was effectively removed from the case, which is under mounting fire for having degenerated into a campaign to bully critics of the Islamist-rooted government.
He has argued that a secularist network called Ergenekon planned bombings and assassinations to throw Turkey into chaos and prompt a military coup to oust the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Shortly before the reshuffle was announced, Istanbul Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu said the police were searching locations in Istanbul and six other cities as part of the probe, under way since 2007.
Popular theologist Zekeriya Beyaz said police were confiscating documents he had collected for a yet-unfinished book critical of the influential movement of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, which is close to the AKP. The book was “to tell about their harmful activities,” Beyaz said on Sky Turk television as the search was under way. The Gulen movement has faced mounting accusations that its followers - believed to control key posts in the police - are fabricating and doctoring evidence in the coup investigations to implicate secularist opponents, in collusion with fellows in the judiciary.
Earlier this month, two journalists who investigated Gulenist police were arrested as part of the Ergenekon probe, sparking uproar over press freedom in EU-hopeful Turkey and casting further doubts on the motive of investigators. A court ordered the seizure of an as yet unpublished book on Gulenist police by one of them and warned that those who refused to hand over copies of the draft would also be prosecuted. A police chief who criticised Gulenist colleagues in a book published last August soon found himself behind bars on obscure charges.
Gulen, based in the US for more than a decade, preaches moderate Islam and promotes inter-faith dialogue. His wealthy movement, estimated to number up to 6mn, has won much praise for its high-quality schools, both at home and abroad. But Turkey’s secularists insist the community is a sly movement infiltrating the state in a bid to Islamise the country.
Beyaz stressed yesterday that police focused on material related to Gulen even though the search order was based on a suspicion that speeches he made to criticise Christian missionary activities in Turkey amounted to “incitement” of violence against missionaries. Prosecutors suspect Ergenekon may be behind the murder of a German missionary and two Turkish converts in eastern Turkey in 2007.
The Ergenekon probe, which has resulted in the discovery of several weapons caches, was initially hailed as a success in a country where the army has unseated four governments since 1960. But its credibility waned as police began arresting intellectuals known as AKP opponents and suspects accused police of fabricating evidence.
President Gul visits with the beautiful children of Ghana who are given Turkish flags to wave.
As part of his program in Ghana, President Gül visited Galaxy International School and evinced his pride in the achievements of the school throughout the country.
President Abdullah Gül paid a visit to Galaxy International School, where he enjoyed the performances of the students, and was informed about its activities.
Revealing his happiness to visit the school during his speech, President Gül lauded its staff and principals for perfectly representing Turkey with their proprieties and shared his pride in the fact that Galaxy International School is among Ghana’s best 5 schools. He further congratulated the teachers who have taught about Turkey, its culture and language to students from a number of nations in Ghana, offering his thanks to the Ghanaian officials for lending their corroboration to the opening of the school.
Afterwards, the President completed his schedule in Ghana and left for Gabon, the second stop in his visit to the continent.
Posted: 8:12 pm EDT March 21, 2011Updated: 9:15 am EDT March 22, 2011
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Recently released reports have linked a charter school in Centre County to a controversial network with Turkish links that has gained the attention of federal authorities.
A report published by the Philadelphia Inquirer linked the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania in State College to a network of more than 120 charter schools in the U.S. connected to Turkish preacher and Muslim scholar Fethullah Gulen.
Gulen is living in self-imposed exile in a remote section of the Poconos in Pennsylvania.
Several reports claim that followers of Gulen have opened the network of charter schools across the U.S., and that federal authorities are investigating claims that school workers are donating portions of their salaries to a Muslim movement founded by Gulen.
Former Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Parent Group President Ruth Hocker told WJAC-TV that she started filing freedom of information requests when local teachers were replaced by Turkish teachers and school administrators wouldn't explain the changes or verify teacher certification.
"We liked that they were multicultural, but any group that is favoring certain people over other people; favoring less-qualified people based on their race, that's when it's of concern," said Hocker.
Hocker said four of her children attended Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania; one graduated elementary school and three were eventually pulled from the classroom.
"We would say, 'Why are you hiring teachers who aren't certified?' and they would respond with, 'We can't find anyone local and certified who is qualified.' We would respond with, 'Penn State is right around the corner,; how can you not find someone certified and qualified in this town.' It doesn't even make sense," said Hocker. "We weren't concerned about their safety, but we certainly are concerned about the secrecy and where the money is being spent."
State College Area School District officials said that the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania charter was renewed last July.
Calls requesting comment to the FBI, Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania have not yet been returned.
Copyright 2011 by WJACTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
U.S. charter-school network with Turkish link draws federal attention
By Martha Woodall and Claudio Gatti
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER FOR THE INQUIRER
Fethullah Gulen is a major Islamic political figure in Turkey, but he lives in self-imposed exile in a Poconos enclave and gained his green card by convincing a federal judge in Philadelphia that he was an influential educational figure in the United States.
As evidence, his lawyer pointed to the charter schools, now more than 120 in 25 states, that his followers - Turkish scientists, engineers, and businessmen - have opened, including Truebright Science Academy in North Philadelphia and another charter in State College, Pa.
The schools are funded with millions of taxpayer dollars. Truebright alone receives more than $3 million from the Philadelphia School District for its 348 pupils. Tansu Cidav, the acting chief executive officer, described it as a regular public school.
"Charter schools are public schools," he said. "We follow the state curriculum."
But federal agencies - including the FBI and the Departments of Labor and Education - are investigating whether some charter school employees are kicking back part of their salaries to a Muslim movement founded by Gulen known as Hizmet, or Service, according to knowledgeable sources.
Unlike in Turkey, where Gulen's followers have been accused of pushing for an authoritarian Islamic state, there is no indication the American charter network has a religious agenda in the classroom.
Religious scholars consider the Gulen strain of Islam moderate, and the investigation has no link to terrorism. Rather, it is focused on whether hundreds of Turkish teachers, administrators, and other staffers employed under the H1B visa program are misusing taxpayer money.
Federal officials declined to comment on the nationwide inquiry, which is being coordinated by prosecutors in Pennsylvania's Middle District in Scranton. A former leader of the parents' group at the State College school confirmed that federal authorities had interviewed her.
Bekir Aksoy, who acts as Gulen's spokesman, said Friday that he knew nothing about charter schools or an investigation.
Aksoy, president of the Golden Generation Worship & Retreat Center in Saylorsburg, Pa., where Gulen lives, said Gulen, who is in his early 70s, "has no connection with any of the schools," although he might have inspired the people who founded them.
Another aim of the Gulen schools, a federal official said, is fostering goodwill toward Turkey, which is led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the pro-Islamic prime minister, whose government recently detained journalists after they alleged that Gulen followers were infiltrating security agencies.
Gulen schools are among the nation's largest users of the H1B visas. In 2009, the schools received government approvals for 684 visas - more than Google Inc. (440) but fewer than a technology powerhouse such as Intel Corp. (1,203).
The visas are used to attract foreign workers with math, science, and technology skills to jobs for which there are shortages of qualified American workers. Officials at some of the charter schools, which specialize in math and science, have said they needed to fill teaching spots with Turks, according to parents and former staffers.
Ruth Hocker, former president of the parents' group at the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School in State College, began asking questions when popular, certified American teachers were replaced by uncertified Turkish men who often spoke limited English and were paid higher salaries. Most were placed in math and science classes.
"They would tell us they couldn't find qualified American teachers," Hocker said.
That made no sense in Pennsylvania State University's hometown, she said: "They graduate here every year."
Other school parents described how uncertified teachers on H1B visas were moved from one charter school to another when their "emergency" teaching credentials expired and told of a pattern of sudden turnovers of Turkish business managers, administrators, and board members.
The charter school application that Truebright filed with the Philadelphia School District in 2005 mentioned that its founders helped start similar schools in Ohio, California, and Paterson, N.J.
Shana Kemp, a School District spokeswoman, said that the district had just learned Riza Ulker, Truebright's permanent CEO, was on extended sick leave and that it would look into that. She said district officials knew nothing about a federal investigation of these charter schools.
Further evidence of the ties comes from a disaffected former teacher from Turkey who told federal investigators that the Gulen Movement had divided the United States into five regions, according to knowledgeable sources. A general manager in each coordinates the activities of the schools and related foundations and cultural centers, he told authorities.
Ohio, California, and Texas have the largest numbers of Gulen-related schools. Ohio has 19, which are operated by Concept Schools Inc., and most are known as Horizon Science Academies. There are 14 in California operated by the Magnolia Foundation. Texas has 33 known as Harmony schools, run by the Cosmos Foundation.
In their investigation, federal authorities have obtained copies of several e-mails that indicate the charter schools are tied to Hizmet and may be controlled by it:
One activist sent an e-mail Aug. 30, 2007, to administrators at four schools and the president of Concept Schools in which he mentioned "Hizmet business" and several problems that needed to be addressed so that "Hizmet will not suffer."
And the disaffected teacher who described the five regions gave authorities a document called a tuzuk, which resembles a contract and prescribes how much money Turkish teachers are supposed to return to Hizmet.
State auditors in Ohio found that a number of schools had "illegally expended" public funding to pay legal, immigration, and air-travel fees for nonemployees and retained teachers who lacked proper licenses. Audited records from the Horizon Science Academy in Cincinnati in May 2009 also say that "for the period of time under audit, 47 percent (nine of 19) of the school's teachers were not properly licensed."
The same records show that the founder of Horizon Cincinnati was listed as the CEO of the school's management firm and as president of the school's property owner.
The American charter schools were a central part of Gulen's argument that won him a green card after the Department of Homeland Security ruled that he did not meet the qualifications of an "alien of extraordinary ability" to receive a special visa.
In a lawsuit Gulen filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in 2007 challenging the denial, his attorneys wrote: "In his position as the founder and head of the Gulen Movement, Mr. Gulen has overseen the establishment of a conglomeration of schools throughout the world, in Europe, Central Asia, and the United States."
His attorneys also referred to a letter of support from a theology professor in Illinois who described Gulen as "a leader of award-winning schools for underserved children around the world, including many schools in the major cities in America."
On July 16, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Stewart Dalzell ruled that Gulen met the requirements for a green card.
Hocker, the State College parent, said the current CEO had assured her the school had no ties to Gulen.
Rather, he told her that Gulen had inspired him to go into education and that Turkey "wanted to be known for teaching, the way you would think of India" for information technology, Hocker said.
But she noted that when the school's founding CEO disappeared, his successor arrived from the Buffalo Academy of Science, another Gulen school. The dean of academics came from a related school in New Jersey. Ulker, Truebright's, CEO, was one of the school's founders and is a board member.
"If you start looking at their names, you can connect them back to all the other charter schools and Gulen groups," Hocker said.
She later withdrew her three children over concerns about secrecy and finances.
A sister school - Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania - is scheduled to open outside Pittsburgh in the fall.
(Young Scholars in State College and Western Pennsylvania are not connected to the Young Scholars Charter School in North Philadelphia.)
Truebright, at 926 W. Sedgley Ave., opened in 2007, enrolls seventh through 12th graders, and is about to hold its first graduation. Ninety percent of its students are African American. The school has met the academic standards of the federal No Child Left Behind Law the last two years.
Cidav, the acting CEO, came from the Harmony Science Academy in Austin, Texas. He said he could not comment on behalf of the school. He referred all questions to Ulker, who Cidav said had gone back to Turkey for a family emergency after Christmas and was not expected back until July. Board Chairman Baki Acikel did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
Before Ulker's abrupt departure, he was involved in failed attempts to open charters in Camden and Allentown.
He also applied for Truebright to become one of the charter operators selected to take over failing Philadelphia schools as part of Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman's Imagine 2014 initiative. In late December, Truebright was one of 10 organizations the district deemed "not qualified" for further consideration.
________________________________________
Claudio Gatti is the New York-based correspondent of Il Sole 24 Ore, the leading daily financial newspaper in Italy.
Contact staff writer Martha Woodall at 215-854-2789 or martha.woodall@phillynews.com.
Not all the Lebanese citizens want Turkey or Erdogan infiltrating their country
Erdogan with Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri, why does
Turkey want to put in 55 more Turkish Schools and Hospitals in Lebanon?
Meanwhile over 300,000 teachers are out of work in Turkey, whilest their leadership is on a quest to open Turkish schools worldwide. Turkey believes they still own Lebanon as part of their Ottoman Universal Caliphate.
BEIRUT: Turkey's Ambassador to Lebanon toured a number of Turkish-funded schools in the northern district of Akkar Thursday. Inan Ozyildiz's first stop was in the public school of the town of Aydamoun where he held a meeting with the mayor, members of the municipal council, mukhtars and the school's students and teachers. The Turkish envoy expressed his "permanent joy of meeting with the district's people," as he emphasized firm ties between the Lebanese and Turkish people For other uses of "Turkish", see Turk (disambiguation).
“Turkishness” redirects here. For Turkish law against the public denigration of Turkishness, see Article 301 (Turkish penal code). . Ozyildiz also spoke of his country's support for Lebanon. "There are new developmental projects that will be carried out very soon," he said. The Turkish diplomat also visited other schools in Aydamoun and the villages of Biri and Kawashira. -- The Daily Star
“Have full trust that when Lebanon is happy, Turkey is happy. Whenever Lebanon’s stability and security strengthen, Turkey will be happy,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. “We followed up on the aggression against Lebanon during the 2006 July War, and we felt your pain. We considered that solidarity [is represented through] our responsibility to rebuild Lebanon,” he said during the inauguration of a Turkish-funded school in the Akkar village of Aidamun. Erdogan added that Turkey has helped build 38 schools across Lebanon. The Turkish PM thanked all of those who contributed to building the school in Aidamun. Erdogan arrived in Beirut on Wednesday for a two-day official visit. -NOW Lebanon
From the Economist: The arrests of Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener came at a time of growing concern about pressure on the media. Scores of journalists, many of them Kurds, are in jail. The European Union and America say they are worried. Thousands of Turks took to the streets in protest after the arrests. ...
Yet even AK’s biggest fans worry that the legitimacy of the Ergenekon case is being dented by heavy-handed tactics such as the arrests of Mr Sik and Mr Sener. Four years after the investigation began there have still been no convictions. Some suspects have yet to be charged. The investigation, say some, has become a mere pretext to round up the government’s critics. Last month police raided the offices of OdaTV, a website, and arrested three journalists on suspicion of inciting a coup. ...
Zekeriya Oz, the chief Ergenekon prosecutor, said the pair were arrested not because of their writings but because of “other activities” that he was, for the time being, “unable to reveal”. Yet leaked transcripts of their interrogations show that Mr Oz grilled them about several books, including one written by a former police chief, Hanefi Avci, which also attacks the Gulenists. (Shortly after its publication, Mr Avci, a self-avowed religious conservative, was imprisoned for his alleged membership of an obscure left-wing faction.)
Emma Sinclair-Webb of Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, points out that the use of secret evidence means that defendants cannot challenge their detention. The longer it remains secret, the louder the protests are likely to be. (photo: AFP)
Unite against the censorship of of the Gulen Movement and AKP Party, it is an assault against ALL Journalists and Democracy.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 001722
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE AND NEA/I
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/03/2019
TAGS: PREL PTER PGOV PHUM TU
SUBJECT: GULEN - TURKEY'S INVISIBLE MAN CASTS LONG SHADOW
REF: A. ANKARA 1029
¶B. ANKARA 834
Classified By: Ambassador James Jeffrey, for reasons 1.4(b),(d)
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Fethullah Gulen remains a political
phenomenon in Turkey. Although "exiled" in Pennsylvania for
the past decade, Gulen's impact continues to expand, aided by
legions of loyalist supporters and a network of elite
schools. The Gulen Movement's purported goals focus on
interfaith dialogue and tolerance, but in the current
AKP-secularists schism, many Turks believe Gulen has a deeper
and possibly insidious political agenda, and even some
Islamist groups criticize Gulen's lack of transparency, which
they say creates doubts about his motives. END SUMMARY.
¶2. (SBU) Gulen was born between 1938-1942 (varying dates have
been given), and initially served as an imam and as an
employee of Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs
(Diyanet). He established his own movement in the 1970s
based on the teachings of Said Nursi, an Islamic thinker of
Kurdish origin, whose followers are called Nurcus. Gulen
then broke away from the Nursi framework. Gulen's own
philosophy emphasizes the role of science in Islam. He
supports interfaith dialogue and condemns terrorism. In the
past two decades, Gulen has focused primarily on education,
not only in Turkey but around the world. His schools have
earned a reputation particularly in Central and South Asia
for academic excellence and the advocacy of moderate Islamic
views.
Indicted, Then Acquitted
------------------------
¶3. (SBU) Gulen has been living in the U.S. since 1999 when he
went there ostensibly for health treatments (a heart
condition and diabetes). At the same time, however, he faced
charges in Turkey of plotting to overthrow the state. The
charges were based on a 1986 sermon where Gulen is heard
declaring that "our friends, who have positions in
legislative and administrative bodies, should learn its
details and be vigilant all the time so they can transform it
and be more fruitful on behalf of Islam in order to carry out
a nationwide restoration." This indictment gave his travel
to the U.S. the appearance of his being a fugitive from the
Turkish judicial system. A Turkish Court acquitted him of
all charges in 2006. That acquittal was appealed but the
acquittal was upheld in 2008.
¶4. (SBU) In the meantime, Gulen had applied for Permanent
Residence status in the U.S. Immigration officials initially
rejected Gulen's application to be classified as "an alien of
extraordinary ability," but a Federal Court ruled in late
2008 that this rejection had been improper. Gulen now holds
a Green Card, and lives in a secluded compound in
Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.
¶5. (SBU) The core of the Fethullah Gulen Movement is his
network of schools, which extend from South Africa to the
United States. The schools emphasize high academic
achievement, and they openly recruit and provide scholarships
to the brightest students from poor and working class
families. Gulenist schools in Turkey routinely produce
graduates who score in the upper one percent of the annual
university entrance exam. These top graduates often become
teachers themselves. The Gulenist doctrine, with its
conservative and religiously observant undercurrent, has met
fierce hostility in regimes such as Russia, which expelled
the Gulenists en masse in the 1990s.
¶6. (C) But it is within Turkey that the movement has its
roots, its largest following, and its greatest controversies.
The Gulen Movement includes not only educational
institutions, including the famous Samanyolu ("Milky Way")
school in Ankara and Fatih University, but also the
ANKARA 00001722 002 OF 003
Journalists and Writers Foundation, various businesses, and
media outlets such as "Zaman," "Today's Zaman" (English
language), "Samanyolu TV," and "Aksiyon Weekly." Gulenists
also reportedly dominate the Turkish National Police, where
they serve as the vangard for the Ergenekon investigation --
an extensive probe into an alleged vast underground network
that is accused of attempting to encourage a military coup in
¶2004. The investigation has swept up many secular opponents
of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), including
Turkish military figures, which has prompted accusations that
the Gulenists have as their ultimate goal the undermining of
all institutions which disapprove of Turkey becoming more
visibly Islamist. (COMMENT: The assertion that the TNP is
controlled by Gulenists is impossible to confirm but we have
found no one who disputes it, and we have heard accounts that
TNP applicants who stay at Gulenist pensions are provided the
answers in advance to the TNP entrance exam. END COMMENT)
Championing the Ergenekon Probe
-------------------------------
¶7. (C) Gulenist newspapers such as "Zaman" relentlessly
question the validity of the Ataturk legacy and argue that as
an EU aspirant country, Turkey must ensure the diminished
voice of the Turkish military in political issues. These
papers champion the Ergenekon investigation and continually
stress that the traditional dominance of the Turkish military
has been a negative factor in Turkey's history. Not
surprisingly, contacts close to the the Turkish General Staff
openly loathe Gulen, and contend that he and his legions of
supporters are embarked on a ruthless quest not only to
undermine the Turkish military but to transform Turkey into
an Islamic republic similar to Iran.
¶8. (C) Even among some Islamist organizations, the Fethullah
Gulen Movement seems to have a murky reputation. The former
head of the City Women's Platform, Hidayet Tuksal, told us
that her group regards Gulen positively, because he
disapproves of the use of violence, but that Gulen's lack of
transparency creates doubt about his motives and leads to
suspicions about what lies ahead -- even within the
communities where Gulen is most active. Gulen's purported
main goal is to bolster interfaith dialogue and tolerance,
but the notion is widespread among many circles in Turkey
that his agenda is deeper and more insidious.
¶9. (C) The Gulen movement has been described as a modernized
version of Sunni Hanafi Islam. It shares this orientation
with "Milli Gorus," the grouping associated with former PM
Necmettin Erbakan, but the two movements are otherwise
distinct: "Milli Gorus" is Turkey-centric; the Gulen Movement
has a broader scope and is more comfortable with the concept
of justifying the means for the end, such as discarding the
headscarf when necessary. Still, there is some convergence:
many of the founders of AKP came from "Milli Gorus," but many
officials within AKP are known to be close to the Gulen
movement.
¶10. (C) Most discussions in Turkey which touch on Gulen tend
to be somewhat delicate and deliberately artful. Our
interlocutors often seem reluctant to express their views,
seemingly uncertain if it will rebound on them to their
detriment. In addition, the political context for
conversations about Gulen is complicated because President
Gul is himself seen by almost all of our contacts as a
Gulenist, while Prime Minister Erdogan is not. Indeed, some
of our contacts have argued that Erdogan is so firmly outside
the Gulen camp that Gulen loyalists view him as a liability.
At the same time, the Republican People's Party and other AKP
opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party are
quick to accuse the U.S. of working covertly to prop up
Gulen, allegedly to weaken Turkey's secular foundation to
produce a "model" moderate Islamic nation. This accusation
relies on the premise that Gulen was given refuge in the
U.S., and ultimately permanent resident status, despite
ANKARA 00001722 003 OF 003
facing indictment in Turkey for illegal anti-secularist
activities.
¶11. (C) Gulen has his share of non-Islamic supporters, which
includes the Eucumenical Patriarch in Istanbul. In a recent
conversation with the Ambassador, the Patriarch reported that
he had visited Gulen during his last trip to the United
States and had spent more than an hour together in a
one-on-one discussion. He planned to see Gulen again on his
recent visit to New York. The Patriarch told the Ambassador
he had been "very impressed" with Gulen and commented on the
quality of Gulen schools, including a Gulenist University in
Kazakhstan named for Suleyman Demirel.
Comment
-------
¶12. (C) Given the current AKP-secularist schism in Turkey
today, it should not be surprising that any Islamist movement
in Turkey would choose to be circumspect about its
intentions. Unfortunately, this simply feeds the reflexive
tendency in Turkish society for conspiracy theories, and
magnifies suspicions about the Gulen movement itself. While
the purported Gulen goals of interfaith dialogue and
tolerance are beyond reproach, we see aspects of concern in
the allegations that the USG is somehow behind the Gulen
movement. Accordingly, we would recommend the following
standard press guidance:
Q:
Why is the U.S. sheltering Fethullah Gulen and doesn't this
mean that the US is promoting a non-secular Turkey?
A:
-- The U.S. is not "sheltering" Mr. Gulen and his presence in
the U.S. is not based on any political decision.
-- Mr. Gulen applied for, and received, permanent residence
in the U.S. after a lengthy process which ended in 2008 when
a Federal Court ruled that he deserved to be viewed as an
"alien of extraordinary ability" based on his extensive
writings and his leadership of a worldwide religious
organization.
-- As a Green Card holder, Mr. Gulen is entitled to all the
privileges which that status entails. His presence in the
U.S. should not be viewed as a reflection of US policy toward
Turkey.
JEFFREY
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Turkey, the supposed bridge between East and West, was, until recently, showcased as a model democratic and secular exception in the Muslim world. Since the days of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk -- founder of the modern Turkish state in the 1920s -- the Turkish military and courts were assumed to be effectively moderating against the theocratic and ideological hold of Islam evident in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
However, closer inspection reveals that this has not been the case, especially in the last half century. Instead, what actually exists is the veneer of a democratic republic overlaying an insidious, percolating revival of the Ottoman Empire by way of dormant Islamic fundamentalism and Turkish nationalism. Using financial and political clout on a global scale, Turkey and one of its premier Islamic leaders, Fetullah Gulen, have steadily gathered allies, including even in the United States, to pursue their dream of a global caliphate.
The fight against modernization and secularization never really ended in Turkey, particularly among that country's rural population, according to author and commentator Andrew Bostom. Bostom reviewed the scholarship of former Hebrew University professor Uriel Heyd, PhD. (1913-1968) who 43 years ago wrote regretfully of his belated recognition of Turkey's re-Islamization. Dr. Heyd decried as shortsighted the view that the secular state had expunged Islam as a vital force in Turkish life. He traced re-Islamization efforts to the late 1930s and cited the dramatic rise of religious instruction in schools, the proliferation of mosques, Muslim supremacist views of Turkishness -- only Muslims could be real Turks -- and the return of the five-times-daily public call to prayer in Arabic following the Democratic Party victory in 1950.
Thus, contrary to the current media view, the rise of Islam in Turkey is not a recent phenomenon attributable to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). But the movement toward an Islamic theocracy has indeed accelerated since the 2002 formation of a single-party government with a two-thirds parliament majority and Erdogan's subsequent election in 2003.
United States and Turkey
Since the end of World War I when the German-allied Ottoman Empire was defeated and the sultanate and caliphate were replaced by the Republic of Turkey, Turkey has been an important U.S. ally because of its size, strategic location and profitable business opportunities for American companies. Although designated a "neutral" country during World War II, Turkey supplied the Germans with substantial quantities of chromites, essential minerals which harden steel for armor. The Turks didn't declare war against Germany until 1945, ostensibly to be a party to final negotiations at war's end. That same year, Turkey became a United Nations charter member and, as part of the U.N. command, participated in the Korean War, thereby earning a much desired place in NATO in 1952. The United States and Turkey enjoyed close bilateral relations through the post-Cold war period.
Today the government in Turkey has moved away from the West, particularly the United States and Israel, and toward Iran and Syria, effectively changing the balance of power in the Middle East and across the globe. Turkey is actively and more openly pushing for Islamization and an expanded role for the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2007 on Turkish television, Erdogan admonished Westerners' use of the term "moderate Islam," by declaring, "These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that's it."
That should have set off alarms in the West and extinguished any fantasies of Turkey's role as a pillar of "moderate" Islam. Erdogan had made earlier alarming statements, similarly ignored as in 1994, while mayor of Istanbul, when he avowed, "Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the Shariah." Further confirming his strategy in 1996 after he was dismissed as mayor, the future Prime Minister stated, "Democracy is like a streetcar. You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off." Since 2002, the Turkish government has been pursuing a version of Islam closely aligned with the Wahhabi extremist Islam of the Saudis.
Islamization and Turkey
The Erdogan government publicly claims to be democratizing Turkey but has curtailed freedom of the press, jailed and sued journalists for criticizing the government and confiscated newspapers and sold them to AKP sympathizers. AKP supporters have infiltrated the military and are suspected of wiretapping and evidence fabrication against retired military officers. Erdogan lowered the age for judgeships in order to replace nearly half of all judges with his younger AKP sympathizers. He also removed banking regulatory board members and replaced them with Islamic banking officials and is reported to have received significant financing from Saudi Arabia, including a known Al Qaeda financier.
Anti-Semitism and attacks against Christians and Catholics have increased in Turkey. Expressions of Armenian heritage and culture have been denied, church property has been confiscated, Armenian instruction has been limited to two hours per week (although Sunni Islam classes are required in Turkish public schools) and it is illegal to discuss the Armenian Genocide. Although Turkey previously enjoyed good relations with Israel, the Jewish state is now declared an enemy of Turkey and the media has promoted an anti-Semitic TV series and several anti-Semitic films. Last year, instead of sending aid through legal channels to Gaza and despite Israel's appeals to the government to stop the action, AKP officials openly supported the Gaza flotilla in partnership with the Global Muslim Brotherhood network. Turkey facilitated the purchase and departure from Turkish ports of the lead flotilla ship, the MV Mavi Marmara. Further, the AKP is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood whose spiritual leader -- Yusuf al-Qaradawi -- calls for Islamic domination of Europe. That Turkey, a NATO member, should have such alliances is quite concerning.
In 2010, Erdogan received a human rights award from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and recently refused to impose sanctions on Gaddafi's regime, even as Gaddafi has used fighter jets to kill his own people.
Just this past week, Erdogan visited Germany and told an audience of 10,000 Turkish Germans (of three million in Germany) not to assimilate but to remain part of Turkey. Turkey has used Germany as a strategic base in Europe and sends young Turks, who have fulfilled their military service, into Germany through the extremist Islamic Society of Milli Gorus (IGMG). IGMG members with German-born daughters are encouraged to marry off their daughter to these Turkish males so that they can obtain permanent residency status and create a fifth column of Turkish Islamists. Trade between Turkey and Iran increased by more than 86% last year and Turkey has been supplying Iran's missile program. In return, Iran has agreed to contribute $25 million to the AKP for the upcoming election in June.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai recently announced in a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari that he would be pleased to see Taliban officials setting up an office in Turkey as part of a "new phase" of building bridges and integrating the extremist group. Fetullah Gulen and Turkey
A significant component and AKP ally in the changing face of Turkey has been the influential Gulenist Movement led by Fetullah Gulen, a powerful force in Turkey for over four decades. Gulen began a grassroots movement in the 1970's with the Islamist political party, Milli Gorus, a worldwide Islamist movement with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. AKP emerged from Milli Gorus to restore Islamic religion and culture. The foundation of Gulen's teachings is that state and religion should be reconnected and the country re-emerge as part of a pan-Turkic regional power. A 2009 article in the Middle East Quarterly by Rachel Sharon-Krespin titled "Fethullah Gulen's Grand Ambition" quotes sermons delivered by Gulen on Turkish television in 1999 which provide insights into his methods.
"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, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria ... like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it ... You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey ... Until that time, any step taken would be too early-like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all-in confidence ... trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here-[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here."
Beginning in the 1970's, Gulen began establishing a worldwide network to promote Islam and Turkish nationalism. His followers have since established hundreds of schools in over 110 countries. Gulenists operate an Islamic bank with over $5 billion in assets and own significant print and broadcast media properties, NGOs, think tanks and a publishing company. Gulen recruits Turkish youth by providing housing and education and grooms them for careers in the legal, political and academic professions. In recent years, the AKP passed legislation allowing graduates of Islamic high schools entry into Turkey's universities, guaranteeing Islamist leadership in the future. Gulen controls the majority of schools, universities and dormitories throughout Turkey. His followers remain loyal and donate up to one-third of their income to the movement. In Turkey, Gulen and the AKP together control the police, the intelligence services and the media and actively recruit diplomats for their utility as foreign intelligence satellites. Overall, the holdings are valued at up to $50 billion.
Members of the Gulen movement extend Turkey's influence across the globe and occupy important positions running several media outlets and controlling multiple organizations that facilitate the dissemination of their message worldwide. A visit to a Gulen interfaith and cultural center in Houston illustrates the politically attuned nature of the movement. Signed photographs of local and state politicians and other prominent people are strategically placed at the building's entry way, implying acceptance of the center's activities and giving the impression that the center is an integral and respectable part of the community.
In 1998,Gule n was convicted (since acquitted in 2006 by Erdogan's AKP government) by the Turkish government for "trying to undermine the country's secular institutions, concealing his methods behind a democratic and moderate image" and went into voluntary exile in the United States. Outside of Turkey, Gulen's goal has been to educate a foreign leadership sympathetic to an Islamist Turkey. But his schools are prohibited in Russia and Uzbekistan banned his madrasas and arrested eight Gulenist journalists for involvement in extremist organizations. In the Netherlands, the movement is being investigated for suspicion of being an Islamist fundamentalist network.
Gulen, Turkey and the United States
In the United States, Gulen operates the largest charter school network in America and enjoys the cooperation and protection of the U.S. government. His schools stress intercultural dialogue and tolerance. They include a curriculum that teaches the Golden Age of Turkey or the period of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish language, dance, culture, cooking and Islam, all financed by American taxpayers.
Meanwhile, his worldwide network reaches into U.S. politics through aggressive lobbying, political donations and paid trips to Turkey for members of Congress and their staffs. The Gulen Movement in the United States represents itself as a multi-faith global organization designed to bring together businesses, educators, religious leaders, journalists and others. Gulen has placed many of his followers in large U.S. engineering firms, NASA, the White House, universities and Hollywood. Through his U.S. State Department contacts, he has procured H1-B visas to staff his schools with Turkish followers.
Turkey through Gulen wields considerable power in American politics and is actively involved in lobbying Congress to promote its interests in Washington. Gulen was recently honored under Texas State Resolution No. 85, which recognized his contributions and promotion of world peace, with the Texas legislature describing the Gulen movement as fostering intercultural understanding and tolerance. During the 2008 election cycle, a Turkish-American couple, Yalcin and Serpil Ayasli -- founders of Hittite Microwave, a U.S. military contractor -- gave more money, $424,050, to politicians and political action groups than anyone else in the United States. In subsequent years, the Ayaslis have ranked among the country's top 20 donors. The couple's donations have been geared specifically toward advancing U.S. relations with Turkey and promoting Turkish interests, including stopping the Armenian Genocide Resolution. On this issue alone, "Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker", a service that tracks lobbyist interactions with government officials, reported that Turkey lobbied Congress on the Armenian Genocide Resolution and hired foreign agents to work with influential people outside of the government, spending $3.5 million and logging over 2,200 total contacts, including 100 with the executive branch.
Until recently, Turkey presented its foreign policy as pro-Western. Before the 2002 elections in Turkey, Gulen secured an invitation for Erdogan to the White House, which was construed by the Turkish electorate as a U.S. endorsement. Although the United States has an air base in the country, in 2003, Turkey blocked the use of its bases for U.S. ground troops in the lead up to the war in Iraq.
In 2005, Turkey became the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), a 57 shariah law-endorsing permanent delegation to the U.N. whose mission is to safeguard the interests of the Muslim world. This OIC post strengthened Turkey's Islamic agenda as well as the AKP's stature. Assumption of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel positions has increased Turkey's credibility and stature in the Arab Muslim world as it has moved closer to Syria and Iran.
In 2009, Erdogan visited Iran and voiced support for Tehran's nuclear program and refused to support economic sanctions imposed by the West. The Turkish-Iranian-Syrian alliance provides a hedge against the possibility of an independent Kurdish state, offers significant economic opportunities, enhances Iran's power in the region, empowers Hezbollah and Hamas, puts pressure on pro-Western Arab countries and represents a serious threat to Israel.
Current Middle East Turmoil and Turkey
The current Middle East turmoil is an opportunity for Turkey and Iran to shift the region toward radical Islamist rule and elevate Turkey's role as a regional power. The AKP government expects to play a significant role in the evolving Middle East political re-orientation. Turkey was one of the first countries to advise Mubarak to step down and world leaders, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, are turning to Turkish leadership to assist the transitional government. Recently, Hamad Al Khalifa, the prince of Bahrain, sought Turkish intervention with Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood has extolled the virtues of Turkey providing the AKP with leverage in the Egyptian situation.
When the Islamist AKP took over the Turkish government, the Saudis, who were fearful of the threat presented by Iran and mindful of their own lack of power, saw an opportunity to exert influence on the new government and to revive the caliphate. President Gul had worked at the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in Saudi Arabia for eight years in preparation for the Islamization of Turkey under the Wahhabis. In 1991, he was sent back to Turkey to launch the Islamist movement under Necmettin Erbakan (1926 - 2011), Turkey's first Islamist prime minister, and, later, the AKP.
Under the Ottomans, Muslim power reached its zenith and the Caliph was transferred from Mecca to Istanbul, home of the Holy Relics and Caliphate Seal today, coveted by the Wahhabis since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As Turkey is strong militarily, economically and its people are more nationalistic than Arab Muslim countries, the Saudis believed they could benefit from the alliance. With 100 million Islamicized Turks and Saudi funding of aggressive mosque building and dawa (proselytizing) in Europe, the resurgence of the caliphate could be a reality. The Saudis, who are motivated by the resurgence of the Sunni Caliphate, have played a significant role in Turkey's rise in the Muslim world.
Erdogan in partnership with Fetullah Gulen has made a concerted effort to target the military, take control of the media and stack the courts in order to realize the dream of Neo-Ottomanism -- a return to Turkey's Muslim imperialist past. In their long-term campaign to subordinate the army, the guardian of Turkey's secular democracy, show trials have been held in which high-ranking military officers and political opponents have been arrested and detained without bail. The defendants stand accused of attempting to overthrow the AKP government. The AKP instigated demands by the European Left to curtail military activity as a condition for Turkey's E.U. membership, although there is speculation that this was just a pretext for weakening the military and Turkey does not intend to join the E.U. Academics and journalists are also on trial for trying to bring down the government. In 2003, Erdogan used a constitutional amendment to target the courts and the military and secure the AKP's rule in the country. Erdogan then selected Islamist judge replacements and President Gul appointed pro-Islamic generals and military officers.
Turkey's move away from the West, its renewed alliances with Islamist regimes and its disavowal of secular reforms in favor of theocratic rule under shariah could precipitate a precarious shift in the balance of power in the world. A portentous event could have been when Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month hosted Nureddin Surin, a Hizbollah-activist and the delegation leader of the MV Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship captured by Israeli as it tried to run the Gaza blockade. Surin used the occasion to declare, "We are here today with the longing and the determination to build a Middle East without Israel and America, and to refresh our pledge to continue on the path of the Mavi Marmara shahids (martyrs)....."
The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, took the opportunity to thank the Turkish Muslims for their fight on behalf of Islam. Given the strength of this alliance combined with Saudi largesse and a changing picture in the Middle East, a global caliphate under shariah law could become a reality.
By Janet Levy American Thinker
Gulen fled Turkey under a Tourist Visa, he later applied for a Permanent Visa which was DENIED.
In his appeal Gulen vs. US Homeland Security, special people within the CIA signed letters for Gulen to
stay in the USA. Gulen was finally granted his permanent visa in 2008.
Turkey’s religious Gülen community subject of latest WikiLeaks
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News Thursday, March 17, 2011
The perspective of the United States on religious leader Fethullah Gülen and his international community has evolved over the years amid lobbying efforts by the group to change its image, the latest leaked diplomatic cables have suggested.
Though U.S. officials perceived the community as adhering to a “moderate Islam” model, they expressed concerns in the cables, the first documents released by WikiLeaks’ new Turkish partner, about its perceived infiltration into the Turkish police and accusations of “brainwashing of students” at the community’s schools around the world.
The confidential cables released by daily Taraf focus on U.S. diplomats investigating and analyzing the religious community and its actions, Gülen’s meeting with the pope in 1998 and his stay in the United States, according to reports in the Turkish media Thursday.
The newspaper was set to release the original cables on its website late Thursday as the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press.
Gülen went to the United States on a tourist visa and applied in 1999 for a permanent resident card, or “green card,” which was denied. His lawyers took the matter to court and won the case, granting Gülen his card in 2008. A 2009 cable by former U.S. Ankara Ambassador James Jeffrey mentions that although Gülen’s status in the United States is provided by a court decision, some circles that dislike him incorrectly believe it to be the result of the U.S. government’s politics regarding Turkey.
A secret cable by Stuart Smith, U.S. deputy chief consul for Istanbul, mentions he was told by Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva that a recommendation letter was demanded from the rabbi for Gülen by some people. Haleva told him the letter was to change the image “among some units of the U.S. government” that Gülen is “a radical Islamist who hides a secret and sinister agenda with his moderate message.” These people were mentioned by daily Taraf as members of the Turkey Journalists and Writers Association.
Haleva was hesitant to write such a letter, or even a more limited one just to describe Gülen’s relations with the Jewish community. It is also mentioned that the Armenian patriarch received a similar demand and was likewise hesitant. However, the Vatican representative in Istanbul fully supported Gülen, according to the same cable.
The FBI was also asked for a document of “clear status” for Gülen but did not give it because it might be used for a public-relations campaign, according to a cable featured by Taraf. One 2005 cable said the Gülen community seems to be a “moderate Islam” model that keeps its distance from violence and terrorism and is not anti-Semitic. However, it is also mentioned that since the Gülen community is running a global mission of Islamism, it remains to be seen whether it will remain positive or not. The “brainwashing of students” was mentioned during an evaluation of the community’s schools around the world.
The perception of Gülen changed, however, after U.S. diplomats looked further into the community and spoke to more people about its organization in Turkey, according to Taraf’s coverage. Later reports said Gülen is not a Khomeini who wants to transform Turkey into another Iran. The problem of the Gülen community is not with secularism itself but Turkey’s version of it, which wants to “control everything,” the cables state. “The Gülen community members do not want to bring down the secular order in Turkey dramatically, they are after a change from within,” one said.
The 2009 cable by Jeffery describes Gülen as a “political phenomena” in Turkey even he is “in exile” in Pennsylvania. It was also said the Gülen community is strong within the police force and in conflict with the military, which sees the group as an enemy.
“It is not possible to confirm the Turkish police are under the control of the Gülen community members, but we have not met anybody who denies it,” one cable said. The Gülen-controlled media is supporting the investigation into the alleged Ergenekon coup plot and has resulted in many opponents of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, ending up behind bars, the cable stated.
Gülen met John Paul II in the Vatican in February 1998 upon an invitation from the pope. Taraf’s story said the two people who helped arrange the meeting were Üzeyir Garih, a Turkish businessman of Jewish origin, and Georges Marovitch, spokesman for the Clerics Board of Turkey Catholic Communities, both known as close friends of Gülen. Garih was stabbed to death in Istanbul’s Eyüp Cemetery in 2001 while Marovitch survived a murder attempt in Rome in 2007, when an unidentified assailant pushed him onto a train track. Both incidents left many questions unanswered, the Taraf story said.
Cable says Turkish PM perceived as ‘liability’ by Gülen movement.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a “liability,” members of the Fethullah Gülen community have said, according to a U.S. embassy cable recently released by WikiLeaks’ Turkish partner, daily Taraf.
According to the cable, President Abdullah Gül is perceived to be a member of the religious community “by almost everybody,” but Erdoğan is not. Many told U.S. diplomatic officials that Erdoğan had placed himself outside of the “Gülen front” in such a way that he is perceived as a “liability.”
People are hesitant to reveal their actual opinions because they are afraid what they say could hurt them later, according to the cable.
The cable also said the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and other parties that oppose the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, were quick to accuse the United States of secretly supporting the Gülen movement so as to “weaken the secular foundations of Turkey in order to create a moderate Islamic State ‘model.’”
Gulen Turkish School in West. Shewa, Ethiopia NOTE: the ever present Turkish flag
along with the Ethiopian flag at the front of the school
14 March 2011
Around 200 Turkish business people from different sectors attended the Ethio-Turkish Business Forum, held at the Sheraton Addis, on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, with the aim of making business deals in Ethiopia.
The meeting brought together a heavyweight business delegation from Turkey and a sizeable delegation from both the Ethiopian (ECCSA) and the Addis Abeba chambers of commerce and sectoral associations (AACCSA).
It was organised by the Turkish Exporter's Assembly, the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey, and the Under Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Trade (MoFT) for Turkey in coordination with the ECCSA and AACCSA.
Members of the delegation, drawn from such diverse sectors as construction, textiles, tourism, agriculture, as well as minerals and metallurgy, were especially interested in textile and agriculture joint ventures (JVs) with Ethiopian partners, according to Nevzat Timurtas, a management consultant with Helavet Gida San Ve Tic AS, a consultancy agency.
"Turkish business people are most commonly known in Ethiopia for their schools [there are four Ethio-Turkish schools] and textile businesses," he told Fortune.
These textile factories are Ayka Addis Textile Factory and Shaheen Factory, which is under construction.
"However, there are large Turkish companies which could invest in manufacturing and other areas," Nevzat told Fortune. "Due to their unfamiliarity with local laws, they may start by merely selling their products."
A few internationally well-known construction companies accompanied the business delegation.
The number of Turkish business people operating in Ethiopia has grown by 225, since 2007, according to Rizanur Meral, chairman of the Federation of Businesspeople and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON), who spoke on the occasion during what was his third trip to Ethiopia.
"A total of 50pc of Turkey's 230 billion dollar exports goes to Europe, which says a lot about the necessity to find alternative markets for exports," he said.
The Turkish Export-Import (Exim) Bank has made 100 million dollars available for Turkish businesses to set up projects in Ethiopia.
The country hoped to establish a free trade agreement with Ethiopia in the future, Zafer Caglayan, minister MoFT for Turkey and the highest profile delegate, said during the meeting.
His hope of expanding business ties was echoed by Sufian Ahmed, minister of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) for Ethiopia.
"Turkish companies could play a big part in the government's effort to develop infrastructure, as set out in the GTP. I believe Turkey will be the biggest investor in a couple of years," he said. "The recent soft loan from the Exim Bank, while offering big support for investors, is not big enough and should be expanded."
Joint commission meetings have been held between the two countries, since 2000. In 2005, Recep Tayep Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister, visited Ethiopia, and in 2007, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi visited Turkey.
"Ethio-Turkish relations have existed for centuries but the relationship only started being fruitful over the past decade," he said. "However, the potential trade ties between the two countries are not sufficiently developed."
In a bid to improve these ties, a series of face-to-face meetings between Ethiopian and Turkish businesspeople took place after a break for lunch to discuss potential business arrangements.
Such a meeting took place between the head of Ambassador Garment and Trade Plc and Mustafa Tarik Bozbey, chairman of Mediterranean Clothing and Ready Wear Garments Exporters Union.
"We talked about the possibility of transferring technology from their textile and garment factories, and establishing a JV factory in Ethiopia," Teshome Tafere, general manager of Ambassador, told Fortune. "They undertook to invite us to their Istanbul headquarters and factories to discuss the matter more."
Ambassador has started selling its garments in limited amounts in neighbouring countries, he said. He hoped his company's meeting with the Turkish group would lead to a concrete business partnership, which would help his company attain a foothold in the export market in the region and beyond, Teshome said.
Another attendee who, unlike most of his Turkish counterparts, has an established business in Ethiopia was Mehmet Yildrim, general manager of Pamukkale Turkish Restaurant and Café, located on Bole Road near 2000 Habesha Restaurant.
"I started my business with an investment capital of 100,000 dollars three years ago because Turkish Airlines had started direct flights from Istanbul to Addis Abeba and the number of Turkish investors were increasing," he told Fortune.
While he appreciated the stable and safe environment of Ethiopia, its cultural similarity to Turkey, and its accommodating people, he faced difficulties with banks, especially when trying to send money abroad, he claimed. The paperwork to import machinery and equipment needs to be processed by the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority (ERCA) faster, he said.
Yildrim is studying the sesame and coffee market as well as leather garment sectors in order to enter into imports and exports, but hoped the mentioned difficulties would be solved by then, he said.
11 Mar 2011For many journalists and opinion leaders who supported the Ergenekon investigations from the beginning, Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener’s arrests are absurd and plainly wrong, says Kaya Genç
The Ergenekon case began four years ago, as an ambitious legal investigation seeking to reveal plots against Turkish democracy.
It would supposedly uncover the misdeeds of Turkish state officials who were part of an alleged ultra-nationalist plot that planned to overthrow the ruling AKP government and introduce martial law.
Last week’s arrests of Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, two highly respected journalists, threw doubts on the validity of the case.
For more than a decade Şık and Şener, both self-proclaimed human rights reporters, have reported on the Turkish state’s human rights violations.
The majority of the violations they have documented since 2000 were committed by military forces, whose high-ranking members are still waiting trial in the Ergenekon case.
For many journalists and opinion leaders who supported the Ergenekon investigations from the beginning, Şık and Şener’s arrests are absurd and plainly wrong. It would be like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward being imprisoned for taking part in the Watergate scandal.
Ahmet Şık was a reporter for the political journal Nokta in 2007, when it published a cover story entitled ‘Darbe Günlükleri’ (Coup Diaries) that led to the opening of the Ergenekon investigation itself. Nokta published extracts from diaries, which it claimed were written by the retired vice-admiral Özden Örnek.
The extracts detailed meetings which were said to have taken place between high-profile military chiefs, allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the democratically elected government using illegal means, while collaborating with certain nationalist members of the Turkish media in disinformation campaigns against hand-picked, high-profile figures. Örnek has denied the allegations and says that he has never kept a diary.
The Ergenekon organisation were said to have planned to assassinate the novelist and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, as well as prominent Kurdish politicians Ahmet Türk and Osman Baydemir. Ahmet Şık assiduously reported on the story.
Nedim Şener won the 2010 Oxfam/Novib PEN Freedom of Expression award. His most recent book Red Friday – Who Broke Dink’s Pen was published last month and is a brilliant exposé claiming that Turkish security forces were aware of a plot to assassinate Hrant Dink, the Turkish Armenian editor of Agos newspaper who was murdered in 2007.
Şener’s book created tension among the security community as the trauma surrounding Dink’s murder is still very much alive in Turkey and no institution wants to bear the blame alone.
Many Turks believe that those who were arrested in the Dink case are merely the hit-men who pulled the trigger or aided the actual crime, while the real perpetrators responsible for planning the assassination are still free.
After Dink’s murder, people were shocked to see images of Turkish police and gendarmes alongside his assassin, who smiled ecstatically into the camera phones of the officers.
After these horrors, the Turkish public demanded justice but what it received in return looks nothing like it.
In his column for Taraf newspaper last week, Turkish academic Murat Belge, who was also allegedly targeted by the Ergenekon generals, wrote: “If Ahmet Şık can be arrested, then I, too, may very well be.”
Ahmet İnsel, another leftist academic-cum-journalist, warned that “the Ergenekon case is turning into Susurluk”, implying that the attempt to expose the crimes of the security forces is itself turning into a plot that hinders justice, creating an impression of a country where unfair legal acts are committed.
In the late 1990s, Turkish journalists who revealed the existence of proto-fascist groups in the state apparatus that terrorised Kurds and leftists in the country, faced similar problems regarding freedom of expression while their reports and investigations helped unveil the Susurluk gang, a mixture of former MPs, police chiefs and army personnel.
While the arrests of Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, who were among ten journalists and writers taken into custody last Thursday, provoked widespread protests and various sit-ins in İstanbul, there were also some journalists who seemed to disagree with the outrage.
They asked the public to wait for the evidence to be produced by the prosecutor, Zekeriya Öz, who may eventually connect findings from previous arrests, implicating these journalists as accomplices of the Ergenekon organisation.
A friend and colleague of many years, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu of Radikal newspaper, begs to differ. He describes Ahmet Şık as a hard working reporter and an unyielding leftist, definitely having nothing to do with the Ergenekon crew whose ideology is extremely militant in tone.
Nedim Şener, who was chosen as 56th World Press Freedom Hero by the International Press Institute (IPI) for his book The Dink Murder and Intelligence Lies, is an even more moderate figure who shares an inquisitive journalist’s perspective with Şık, asking unsettling questions about Turkey’s police organisation that may eventually help reveal its defects.
They both have reservations about Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based Muslim scholar whose community (known as cemaat) is widely agreed to be an unprecedented force in contemporary Turkish politics and daily life.
While numerous secularists see Gülen as an extremely powerful figure, whose organisation is ultimately harmful for democracy, many pious Muslims and moderates see him as a peaceful voice whose blend of democracy and Islam is vital for a regeneration of Turkish democracy.
Şık’s forthcoming book, due to be published next month, is reportedly a critique of Gülen and many fear that this was the actual cause of his arrest.
It is claimed the police department has sympathy for the Gülen community, while the Turkish media has reported that his book was the chief reason behind the raid.
On Sunday, however, prosecutor Öz denied the allegations that Şık and Şener were arrested either for their books or their ideas. In an unusual statement published by a state prosecutor, Öz defended the arrests which he said were related to hard evidence “that cannot be revealed at this stage of the case”.
Socialist, nationalist, liberal and Islamist journalists walked together through İstanbul’s crowded İstiklal Street during protests last week.
There were more than 3,000 protesters who attended the march, many of whom are known to be deeply suspicious of each other’s ideas, uneasy about walking alongside their ideological polar opposites.
Some of the protesters expressed their concerns at a crackdown on secularism and republican values while others feared a right-wing wave of raids against socialists.
Many democrats who have supported the government over the last decade now fear a loss of credibility for the Ergenekon case that started with the findings of journalists.
Two of those journalists are now in Silivri Penitentiaries Campus, alongside retired generals and military personnel, waiting for their trial, date unknown. Kaya Genç is a novelist and journalist.
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