Fethullah Gulen lives in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.
Below is local news on Gulen via CNN News Wire:
Is Man Living in Poconos Responsible for Military Coup in Turkey?
http://wnep.com/2016/07/15/is-man-living-in-poconos-responsible-for-military-coup-in-turkey/
Low-flying military jets buzzed over Turkey's capital of Ankara. Soldiers blocked major bridges in Istanbul. State-run television announced that the military had imposed martial law.
In an interview via FaceTime on CNN Turk television, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the coup on an international opposition network.
That movement is led by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish imam and Islamic scholar who has been living in Pennsylvania in the Saylorsburg area in a compound just off Mount Eaton Road. It's called the Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center.
Three years ago, after violent clashes in Turkey, protesters gathered near the compound denouncing Gulen and his followers.
Gulen's religious and social teachings and movement are referred to as Hizmet.
[...] Gulen issued a statement in response:
“I condemn, in the strongest terms, the attempted military coup in Turkey.
Government should be won through a process of free and fair elections, not force.
I pray to God for Turkey, for Turkish citizens, and for all those currently in Turkey that this situation is resolved peacefully and quickly.
As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations.”
The Alliance for Shared Values, a nonprofit affiliated with Gulen and Hizmet, issued a statement as well.
“For more than 40 years, Fethullah Gulen and Hizmet participants have advocated for, and demonstrated their commitment to, peace and democracy. We have consistently denounced military interventions in domestic politics. These are core values of Hizmet participants. We condemn any military intervention in domestic politics of Turkey.
Events on the ground are moving quickly and it would be irresponsible for us to speculate on them. We remain concerned about the safety and security of Turkish citizens and those in Turkey right now.
Comments by pro-Erdogan circles about the movement are highly irresponsible.”
Erdogan urged people to take to the streets against the military. He vowed to return Ankara. His location was unclear.
"This was done from outside the chain of command," he said, adding that lower-ranking officers had rebelled against senior officers.
"In history, nowhere in the world has a coup been successful," Erdogan added. "Sooner or later, they all fail."
Meanwhile, thousands across Istanbul and Ankara began flooding the streets alongside military tanks.
Famously sensitive to criticism, Erdogan is no stranger to controversy. Here's how he rose to power and divided a country.
The bitter divide over a leader "So long as you love the people sincerely and deeply, people will love you," Erdogan told CNN in March.
But the population is bitterly divided between citizens who love -- or loathe -- their president.
Along with deadly jihadist bombings and rising tensions with the country's largest ethnic minority, Turkey is perhaps more internally politically polarized than ever.
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Erdogan has used the conflict as an opportunity to crack down on the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The militant group has been battling the Turkish state for decades and is listed as a terrorist organization by NATO, the U.S. and the EU.
The strategy "stoked the fires of Kurdish grievances, and the PKK returned the favor in-kind -- ratcheting up its terror attacks on the Turkish state, mainly against security institutions like the police, which have increased in number and frequency over the past five years," according to Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
But Erdogan also benefited. He used the attacks to portray himself as the man protecting the nation from terrorism.
However, Erdogan's image has been tarnished by strict internet censorship -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are frequently blocked in Turkey -- and the wholesale sacking of police officers and prosecutors who had investigated his government for corruption.
'I'm not at war with the press'
In March, Erodgan's critics accused him of launching a nationwide crackdown on dissent in the media -- and society at large.
Turkish authorities seized control of the country's largest newspaper earlier this year. Turkish journalists were tried for espionage after publishing a video allegedly showing the intelligence agency funneling weapons into Syria.
"I'm not at war with the press," Erdogan insisted.
Insulting the president is a crime in Turkey. More than 1,800 cases have been filed since Erdogan took office in 2014, according to the country's Justice Minister.
Turkey's troubled relationship with the media has long been a point of contention for the European Union, which has said freedom of the press and of expression are nonnegotiable conditions for joining the EU. Erdogan has called these concerns "irrelevant obstacles."
From prime minister to president Erogan is the co-founder of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). He was elected prime minister in 2003. Under his rule, Turkey became a powerhouse in the Middle East. His reign came to an end in 2014, and his own party's rules prevented him from seeking a fourth term. So, he ran for president -- and won.
Before this, the president of Turkey was a largely ceremonial role, but Erdogan tried to change that by altering the constitution to give him more power.
The 2015 election resulted in a hung Parliament, leading to sweeping anti-government protests and terror attacks. Turkey held a snap election, and with that, Erdogan's AK Party regained control.
Under Erdogan, who is extremely conservative, religion has started to play a more important role in Turkey, which is a largely secular country. He was active in Islamist circles in the 1970s and 1980s.
A champion of pious, working class Turks, Erdogan had until recently presided over a prolonged period of economic expansion.
But the heady days when Erdogan pushed reformist agenda and lobbied to win Turkey's membership in the European Union have long faded.
Who is Fethullah Gulen, the man blamed for coup attempt in Turkey?
http://wnep.com/2016/07/16/who-is-fethullah-gulen-the-man-blamed-for-coup-attempt-in-turkey/
SAYLORSBURG, Pa. — Was a plan to overthrow Turkey’s government really hatched behind a gated compound in a small, leafy Pennsylvania town, or is that merely a smoke screen?
In the throes of a military coup attempt, Turkey’s embattled president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pointed the finger of blame squarely at his bitter rival: Fethullah Gulen.
At the center of this rivalry, a fundamental division in Turkish society between secularists — some within the country’s top military brass — and Islamists, including Erdogan’s AKP party.
It’s this division that’s destabilizing one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East.
And at the center of all this is Gulen, a reclusive cleric who leads a popular movement called Hizmet.
Who is this mysterious man in Pennsylvania? The 75-year old imam went into self-imposed exile when he moved from Turkey to the United States in 1999 and settled in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.
He rarely speaks to journalists and has turned down interview requests from CNN for more than four years.
Supporters describe Gulen as a moderate Muslim cleric who champions interfaith dialogue. Promotional videos show him meeting with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican in the 1990s. He also met frequently with rabbis and Christian priests in Turkey.
Gulen has a loyal following — known as Gulenists — in Turkey, who all subscribe to the Hizmet movement.
Hizmet is a global initiative inspired by Gulen, who espouses what The New York Times has described as “a moderate, pro-Western brand of Sunni Islam that appeals to many well-educated and professional Turks.” NGOs founded by the Hizmet movement, including hundreds of secular co-ed schools, free tutoring centers, hospitals and relief agencies, are credited with addressing many of Turkey’s social problems.
The preacher and his movement also spawned a global network of schools and universities that operate in more than 100 countries.
In the United States, this academic empire includes Harmony Public Schools, the largest charter school network in Texas.
Within Turkey, volunteers in the Gulen movement also own TV stations, the largest-circulation newspaper, gold mines and at least one Turkish bank.
Gulen: a coup architect or a scapegoat? As a wave of violence washed over Turkey Friday night, leaving at least 161 people dead, a defiant Erdogan addressed his country, telling them that the coup had been quashed.
And he seemed to assign blame to “those in Pennsylvania,” a not-so-veiled reference to Gulen.
“The betrayal you have shown to this nation and to this community, that’s enough. If you have the courage, come back to your country. If you can. You will not have the means to turn this country into a mess from where you are,” he said.
Erdogan is demanding punishment for the man he deems responsible.
“I call on the United States and President Barack Obama. Dear Mr. President, I told you this before. Either arrest Fethullah Gulen or return him to Turkey. You didn’t listen. I call on you again, after there was a coup attempt. Extradite this man in Pennsylvania to Turkey! If we are strategic partners or model partners, do what is necessary,” Erdogan said.
In a statement, Gulen denied any connection to the coup attempt and even suggested the whole thing may have been staged.
“I do not say this is the case, only that it could be the case,” he said.
Gulen also condemned the coup attempt in his statement.
“As someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt. I categorically deny such accusations,” Gulen said.
His supporters from the Alliance for Shared Values on Developments in Turkey also denied Gulen’s involvement in a statement released on Friday.
“For more than 40 years, Fethullah Gulen and Hizmet participants have advocated for, and demonstrated their commitment to, peace and democracy. We condemn any military intervention in domestic politics of Turkey. Comments by pro-Erdogan circles about the movement are highly irresponsible,” the group said.
Not the first coup accusation The Turkish government also accused Gulen’s supporters of spearheading an unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey in January 2014.
Erdogan, a religious conservative, has compared Gulen and his supporters to a virus and a medieval cult of assassins.
In an interview with CNN at the time, a top official from Erdogan’s ruling AKP party called the Gulen movement a “fifth column” that had infiltrated the Turkish police force and judiciary.
“We are confronted by a structure that doesn’t take orders from within the chain of command of the state,” parliament member and deputy AKP chairman Mahir Unal told CNN. “Rather, it takes orders from outside the state.”
During the 2014 skirmish, in a rare email interview published in The Wall Street Journal, Gulen denied any involvement in a political conspiracy.
“We will never be a part of any plot against those who are governing our country,” he wrote.
Gulen and Erdogan: fierce adversaries The rivalry seen today has not always existed. In fact, throughout much of the last decade, the Gulen movement was also a strong Erdogan supporter.
Pro-Gulen media outlets backed sprawling investigations of alleged coup plots organized by Turkish military commanders. Dozens of military officers, as well as secular writers, academics and businessmen, waited for years in prison for trials that critics called witch hunts.
At that time, it also became increasingly dangerous to criticize the Gulen movement.
Police arrested and imprisoned writer Ahmet Sik for more than a year, accusing him of supporting a terrorist organization. A court banned his book “The Imam’s Army,” which took a critical look at the Gulen movement, before it was even published.
Now out of prison, Sik said the long-standing alliance between Turkey’s two most prominent Islamic leaders — Erdogan and Gulen — had collapsed into a bitter power struggle.
“There was a forced marriage, and the fight that began with who would lead the family is continuing as an ugly divorce,” Sik told CNN.
“On the one side, there is the Gulen community, a dark and opaque power that can damage the most powerful administration in Turkish history. And on the other side, you have an administration that under the guise of fighting this community can and has suspended all legal and democratic principles,” he said.
Turkish government says situation under control; air base used by U.S. closed
http://wnep.com/2016/07/15/turkish-military-units-attempt-uprising-pm-says/
Turkey’s government said Saturday it was firmly in control after a coup attempt the night before sparked violence and chaos, leaving 161 people dead.
Friday’s uprising by some members of the military is the latest worrying example of deteriorating stability in a country that a few years ago was being promoted to the wider Muslim world as a model of democratic governance and economic prosperity.
Some 14 years after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political party swept to power in elections, Turkey once again teeters on the brink.
The turmoil exposes deep discontent within the military ranks and a defiant Erdogan has vowed to purge those traitorous elements. But less than 24 hours after the attempted putsch, questions remained about who masterminded it and why they decided to act now.
Key air base closed Turkish military authorities, meanwhile, closed the airspace around Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base — the site Turkey allows the United States to use for operations related to its air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq — a U.S. defense official told CNN on Saturday.
This has led to a halt in U.S. airstrike missions from that location, the official said on condition of anonymity. Turkish officials told the United States that the airspace has been closed until they can make sure all elements of the Turkish air force are in the hands of pro-government forces after Friday’s coup attempt, the U.S. official said.
Still, a small number of U.S. planes that already were on missions before the airspace closed have been allowed to return and land at Incirlik, the official said, adding that there is no clear understanding about how long the airspace closure will last.
Earlier, the U.S. consulate in Adana reported that power to the base had been cut and local authorities were preventing movement onto and off the site. The consulate warned U.S. citizens to avoid the area.
The base is home to the Turkish Air Force and the U.S. Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing, which includes about 1,500 American personnel, according to the base website.
Uprising ‘under control’ The Turkish military claim of a takeover was read by an anchor on state broadcaster TRT. She said the military imposed martial law.
The military said it seized control of the country to maintain democratic order, adding that the “political administration that has lost all legitimacy has been forced to withdraw.”
The attempted coup appeared to lose momentum after Erdogan returned from a vacation at the seaside resort of Marmaris and declared his government was in control. But by the time he re-emerged after hours of silence, dozens of people had died in the violence.
Of the 161 deaths, most were police officers killed in a gunfire exchange with a helicopter near the Parliament complex in Ankara, Turkey’s NTV reported. It said the building was damaged.
An additional 1,140 people were wounded, said Yildirim.
A total of 2,839 military officers were detained, a source in the President’s office said. And the Ankara chief public prosecutor’s office took nearly 200 top Turkish court officials into custody, Anatolian News Agency reported Saturday.
The officials include 140 members of the Supreme Court and 48 members of the Council of State, one of Turkey’s three high courts.
8 seek asylum in Greece - A Turkish helicopter carrying eight men landed in Greece Saturday and the men aboard requested political asylum, Greek government spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili said.
In response to this news, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that Turkey has “requested the immediate surrender of eight heinous soldiers who escaped to Greece with a helicopter.”
Later, he tweeted that Greece agreed to return the “traitors” as soon as possible.
Earlier, Gerovasili said Greece was considering the asylum request, and the helicopter — which landed at an airport in Alexandroupoli, near the Turkish border — would be returned to Turkish authorities. The helicopter landed after issuing a distress signal regarding a mechanical failure, she added.
(Article continues - repeat of info already posted above.)
