“In a democratic order, if you are not allowed to express your views, then even the minimal requirements of being a democracy are not fulfilled. Imposing a type of rule with reference to religious notions will have serious political and legal repercussions,” Fethullah Gülen said.
Instead of Erdoğan’s accusations that the Hizmet movement had plotted to unseat his government, couldn’t it have been a handful of good men and women within the bureaucracy, i.e., the judiciary and the police, who leaked the investigation documents on Dec. 17 to the public to prevent these crimes from being covered up?
Despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s continual accusations that the faith-based Hizmet movement is plotting against him through recordings that have implicated Erdoğan and his son Bilal in bribery and corruption, the prime minister has refrained from filing any lawsuits against members of the Hizmet movement, which has raised questions from analysts.
Responding to the parliamentary question, the German government, which is led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that an extensive assessment of the faith-based movement’s organizations and foundations in Germany had failed to find any evidence of involvement in any wrongdoing or illegal activity.
The government is continuing to act in panic. In the last couple of months, every single step it has taken has somehow been related to the graft probe, and they all are being taken to suffocate the corruption investigation. The government is freeing Ergenekon suspects willingly and on purpose to create an alliance against the so-called “parallel state,” as they call the movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen.
Fethullah Gülen’s stance on corruption and anti-democratic practices has never changed. Osman Şimşek, the editor of herkul.org, which broadcasts and publishes Gülen’s speeches, recently published a letter that Gülen sent to Erdoğan in May 2006. In the letter, Gülen warns the prime minister that his government had begun to deviate from its democratic line.
“If among those who conducted the graft investigations were some people who might be connected to the Hizmet movement, was I supposed to tell these people, ‘Turn a blind eye to the corruption charges?’ It appears to me that some people were expecting me to do this. Did they expect me to do this? How can I say something that would ruin my afterlife? How else can I act?” Fethullah Gülen said.
Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has inspired the popular civic and social movement called Hizmet, has said he is concerned with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government’s moves seen over the last couple of years to cut back on fundamental rights and freedoms in Turkey.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son Bilal allegedly urged his father to trigger an operation to detain prominent figures of the Hizmet movement in response to an ongoing graft and bribery investigation implicating Erdoğan, his family members and a number of ministers and businessmen close to him.
The businessman Kalkavan said that the government’s way of dealing with the corruption allegations has been “incomprehensible,” and that he had difficulty explaining to his foreign associates about recent purges of hundreds of police officers and dozens of investigators.
The problem is not about the failure of the members of the Hizmet movement to obey orders from their superiors in the public service but about the claim that the prosecutors and police chiefs who conducted the graft and bribery investigation are members of the Hizmet movement — a claim which has yet to be proven.
Some prominent figures who have little knowledge of the Hizmet movement, including Graham Watson of Britain, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff of Germany and Hélène Flautre of France, find Erdoğan’s hate discourse against the Hizmet movement unacceptable.
Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has inspired a worldwide network active in education, charity and outreach, has described large-scale slander, pressure and oppression his Hizmet movement currently faces as worse than that seen during anti-democratic military coup regimes witnessed by Turkey.