The Turkish cleric Gülen died in the USA. Turkey blames him for the 2016 coup attempt. Erdogan’s former ally was later considered an enemy of the state in Turkey.
The Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkey blames for the 2016 coup attempt, has died in the USA. The 83-year-old cleric died on Sunday evening in a hospital in the US state of Pennsylvania, said the chairman of the Dialogue and Education Foundation, Ercan Karakoyun. The foundation is the German branch of the transnational Gülen movement, which runs schools, tutoring centers and kindergartens in Germany, among other things.
The movement said that Gülen had been in poor health for several years. The foundation recognized Gülen as an influential Muslim scholar.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also confirmed the death of the Islamic preacher in Ankara. He called Gülen the “leader of a dark organization.” Turkish media greeted the news of Gülen’s death with euphoria and sometimes described him as a traitor.
Gülen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, is considered an enemy of the state by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan believes he was the mastermind of the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey and has repeatedly demanded his extradition from the USA. Gülen, who was allied with Erdogan until the public break in 2013, had always denied his involvement and accused Erdogan of having staged the coup himself.
More than 200 dead in attempted coup
On July 15, 2016, parts of the military staged a coup against President Erdogan’s government. There were heavy fighting between coup soldiers and pro-government security forces in Istanbul and the capital Ankara. The putschists used tanks and fighter jets. Among other things, they fired at civilians who opposed the soldiers and thus followed Erdogan’s call. The parliament building in Ankara was also shelled. The uprising was eventually crushed. More than 200 people died and more than 2,000 people were injured.
Under the state of emergency that Erdogan subsequently declared and which only ended in July 2018, the government took action against suspected putschists and supporters of Gülen’s network, the so-called Hizmet movement, but also against members of the opposition. At that time, more than 100,000 state employees were fired and tens of thousands of people were arrested by decree. In Turkey, the movement founded by Gülen is classified as a terrorist organization. Its German branch is not classified as an extremist effort by the German security authorities and is therefore not monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The background to the attempted coup has not yet been fully investigated. BND chief Bruno Kahl said in a “Spiegel” interview in 2017 that the BND was not convinced that Gülen was behind the coup attempt. The former investigative journalist and current politician Ahmet Sik, who is considered an expert on the movement, assumes that Gülen had formed an alliance in the military with other groups.
Preacher founded an extensive network
Gülen was born as the son of a village imam in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum. He devoted himself to religious studies early on. As a preacher, he often spoke to schoolchildren and students, initially only in Turkey, but later also abroad. The network he founded is active in many countries. The aim of the movement is to win Muslims over to a pious way of life through educational institutions, media and club work. Some prominent figures in Turkey were Gülen’s supporters, such as the former Turkish national soccer player Hakan Sükür, who had openly professed his sympathy in the past.
In Türkiye, Gülen supporters rose to key positions for years. At times, Gülen and Erdogan had similar goals: to push back the political power of the secular military and to help the pious part of society rise.
Even before the coup attempt, critics like Ahmet Sik warned that Gülen was infiltrating state institutions. The goal of the Gülen movement was to take over the state’s bureaucracy and control the security apparatus. Sik also criticized Erdogan’s AKP’s support of Gülen for years. His book “The Imam’s Army,” in which he highlighted the dangers, was confiscated in 2011 before it was published.
In the course of the infamous Ergenekon trials, in which Kemalist officers and critical intellectuals were put on trial, Sik was also targeted and ended up in prison. He accused judges and prosecutors close to Gülen of initiating the trials.
Power struggle leads to rupture
After a power struggle between the Islamic preacher and Erdogan, a break occurred in 2013. Erdogan accused the Gülen movement of fomenting a corruption scandal that also put several leading politicians in Erdogan’s circle in trouble.
The deputy speaker of the German-Turkish parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Macit Karaahmetoglu (SPD), recalled the previous cooperation between Gülen and President Erdogan. The SPD MP said that for Erdogan, the death of his opponent “will above all mean relief.” It remains to be hoped that Erdogan’s “political course will relax somewhat as a result of Gülen’s death.”
Gülen’s stay in the USA was originally justified by medical treatment. He lived in seclusion there and rarely gave interviews. The German Foundation for Dialogue and Education said that the Hizmet movement would continue to exist in the future.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
