This post was written by Sharon Higgins, a parent activist and indefatigable blogger in Oakland, California. Her blogs include “Charterschoolscandals,” wherein she tracks the amazing variety of graft, theft, corruption, scandals, and other predictable consequences of deregulation of public money with little or no oversight (I.e., privatization). She has written on many occasions about the proliferation of Gulen-inspired charters, which are now the largest chain in the nation.
Higgins writes:
This weekend, hundreds of people from all over the country, mostly Turkish Americans, are traveling to Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, to protest Fethullah Gulen at his remote compound in the Poconos. Among other activities, Gulen’s followers (a.k.a. the “Gulen Movement”) operate a global network of schools, including the largest charter school network.
Yesterday, an Associated Press report about the protest was picked up by news agencies across the US. A local paper published a more in-depth piece (“Protesters expected at Saylorsburg Islamic center: West End cleric criticized by opponents of Turkish regime.” Pocono Record, 7/10/2013). Both articles mention that a Facebook page was created two weeks ago to organize the event.
In conjunction with the major Pennsylvania protest on Saturday, July 13, a small protest will take place at a Gulen Movement-associated charter school in Oakland, California.
In addition, Mary Addi, the former Ohio Gulen charter school teacher who appeared on last year’s CBS 60 Minutes report about Fethullah Gulen, has started an online petition calling on the Obama administration to investigate the “Gulen-inspired” charter schools for “violating the civil rights of American teachers and administrators for the past eleven years by blatantly ignoring federal age, nationality, and gender equal opportunity laws.” It needs our signatures.
How the protest and the Turkish uprising are tied to Fethullah Gulen and his followers
The Pennsylvania protest is an extension of the Turkish protests that have been drawing international attention since late May. The Turkish uprising is against actions and policies of the country’s leadership and Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling party which took power over a decade ago. These excerpts describe how Fethullah Gulen and his followers are directly connected to the current Turkish regime:
— “Gülen is considered one of [Turkish Prime Minister] Erdoğan’s most powerful allies but is reviled and feared by much of Turkey’s population.” — “Letter from Turkey: The Deep State.” The New Yorker, 3/12/2012
— “But the [Gulen movement’s] stealthy expansion of power — as well as its tactics and lack of transparency — is now drawing accusations that Mr. Gulen’s supporters are using their influence in Turkey’s courts and police and intelligence services to engage in witch hunts against opponents with the aim of creating a more conservative Islamic Turkey… We are troubled by the secretive nature of the Gulen movement, all the smoke and mirrors,” said a senior American official, who requested anonymity to avoid breaching diplomatic protocol. ‘It is clear they want influence and power. We are concerned there is a hidden agenda to challenge secular Turkey and guide the country in a more Islamic direction.’” — ““Turkey Feels Sway of Reclusive Cleric in the U.S.” The New York Times, 4/24/2012
— “When the moderate Islamist AKP took power in 2002, the Gulen movement provided indispensable support for [Prime Minister Erdogan] with its extensive influence in the media, police and judicial system.” — “Who is Fethullah Gulen, Turkey’s Powerful Cleric in Self-Exile?”, International Business Times, 6/6/2013
— “Followers of [Fethullah Gülen] have established a global network of schools, banks, insurance funds and media outlets. They present themselves outwardly as modern, but pursue an uncompromisingly Islamist agenda. And increasingly, they are calling the shots within the Turkish government…” — “Turkish Power Struggle: Brotherly Love Begins to Fray in Ankara.” Der Spiegel, 6/25/2013
Where’s that big, investigative piece, Mr. Hayes?
As an American Foreign Policy Council report of March 2013 astutely points out at its conclusion: “The charter school experiment has resulted in the United States being the only country in the world where the Gülen Movement has been able to establish schools fully funded by the host country’s taxpayers.”
Got that everyone?
In March 2012, Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s All In and Editor at Large at The Nation tweeted this question: “How come no one has done the big, investigative piece on Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen and his movement’s global school network?”
Well that’s a really good question, Mr. Hayes. With most taxpayers still in the dark about this secretive and controversial group and its highly questionable and alarming activities — and with four new Gulen charter schools opening next month (bringing the total to 139 schools in 27 states) — maybe it’s time for you to press on that using your influence as an important member of the US media.
By Sharon Higgins
Oakland, California
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hoping this draws attention to the outrageous behavior of NY Ed Commish lending support to the Gulen charters.
This Fetullah Gulen is the main supporter of Turkish government which is trying to bring the Islamic way of life to the country. Their ultimate aim is to spread İslam all over the world.Starting from USA.Five youngsters have been killed during the protests against the government.Gulen doesn’t deserve to live in the USA.
Reblogged this on luvsiesous and commented:
OK.
The article was not what the headline led me to believe the article would be about.
It turns out that the Turkish government has cronies involved in corrupt and illegal operations around the world. The article implies a global operation which has backed religious corruption in Turkey and in the USA.
The article is about the Islamization of American schools through this corrupt operation.
It has little to do with actual charter schools and the good they do for America. Rather the article was about what the Islamic movement is doing within our school systems – illegally and unConstitutionally.
Had the title reflected what the article was about, I would have felt it was a great article. Instead, I felt cheated a little. It would be like me writing an article about how bad our public schools are, but writing about the corruption within the private-public Islamic schools throughout America. Yes, public schools have problems when they indorse Islamic education at tax payer expense. But, that problem is not the same as what is wrong with our public schools.
IMHO.
Do you agree with me? Or, disagree?
Wayne
Disagree!!!
I have been following the “movement” for a number of years after visiting a Gulen school in Nigeria and finding it to be as confounding an institution as any I have ever encountered. The school was run by a Turkish business man, a very nice person, who, it seemed, had good intentions, who saw his school as an alternative to the public schools in that nation that were, to say the least, terrible places to send one’s child. The Gulen school, a rather expensive private school, was attended by Nigeria’s elite and a few scholarship students who were chosen on the basis of academic achievement. Most of the classes were taught by Turkish teachers who practiced Islam but did not teach Islamic principles in their classrooms, those their Islamic values were clearly communicated in a number of ways through school rules and the manner in which students were to interact with one another and the teachers and administrators. Interestingly, most interestingly to me, the school had few courses in the humanities and courses in the social sciences did not incorporate the news of the day because, as I was told, the news of the day was too controversial, especially in a school in which the children of government officials made up a considerable part of the student body. To teach current events, to allow the news to filter into the school would be upsetting to these students and their families and possibly cause the Nigerian government to revoke permission for the school to exist in Nigeria.
I know many a supporter of the movement, a movement that purports to sponsor world peace, harmony, love, understanding, and so on and which, in many ways, within its schools does just this. On the other hand, there does seem to be a hidden agenda and this agenda does deserve scrutiny for many good intentioned parents send their children to Gulen sponsored schools because these schools do provide students what many believe to be a truly good education. For some, even with knowledge of the philosophical and religious underpinnings of the Gulen Movement, the schools are understood to be better than the public schools and this is something I think all need to consider, whether schools such as these really do provide a better education for students than the others schools available to those who send their children to them.
Gulen schools are strong in the teaching of mathematics and science. They regularly show those who care to see the awards students win in international math and science competitions and they tout the success of graduates in terms of academic achievement post high school graduation. For these reasons, a good many parents are willing to ignore Gulen affiliation and many simply do not care to know what the Movement is about.
I do think that anyone interested in education for democratic societies scrutinize not only the Gulen affiliation but also the nature of the Gulen school curricula and the methods used to teach in these schools. It is a very dangerous thing, I think, to take direct aim at the religious affiliation, so my recommendation is that those concerned take advantage of the sources offered in the article to which this is a response to get to know what the Gulen movement is really about and how the problem is not the Muslim affiliation but the political motivations of those who are followers of Mr. Gulen and how the schools may be being used to inculcate values and beliefs that are of the type the Movement would like to cultivate.
I do think that the Gulen Movement’s tactics, based upon its understanding of the value of education to the achievement of its goals, are truly ingenious and truly worrisome for the possibility that the schools employ a subtle form of indoctrination is of real concern. At the same time, the use of schools to indoctrinate is not to be found in Gulen schools alone. Our public schools indoctrinate too and many who would reject the Gulen initiative embrace the public school initiative because the indoctrination is of a type that is to their liking. Indoctrination of any kind is worse than problematic, it is simply inhumane.
If we could have a discussion of the issue of indoctrination in the schools, a discussion that focuses more broadly than on the Gulen schools alone, then, perhaps we would come to understand what the good arguments may be against Gulen schools or any other schools that have as their agenda, hidden or overt, anything other than helping students to learn how to think for themselves.
I sense a Troll???
A troll? Again, Gulen is a symptom and the lack of courage and good sense in this country to have reasonable conversation about truly important issues is undermining our ability to make reasonable decisions about education and every thing else. Hysterical as people wish to be about the Gulen brand and what it sells, we still refuse to have a frank conversation concerning the role religion should have in a society such as ours and how religion should be treated in the schools. The truly honest conversation would not be about Islam alone but about the role of the supernatural as a force in mature societies, and societies that wish to move along toward maturity. However, such conversation is really not allowed in schools or in the public square because there is a notion that such discussion would hurt some, would somehow be insensitive because it would deal with deep seated beliefs. At the same time, a good many societal decisions are influenced by arguments and demands made on the basis of such beliefs even though the basis for these beliefs cannot be questioned. With the Gulen schools, if the concern is with the curriculum, then go after the curriculum. If the concern is with the political aspirations of the Gulen movement, then go after those, but do the same with other school brands, the public school brand included. What political agendas do they serve? And are those agenda made known to students and their parents? They should be and, if they were, if agendas of all types were not allowed to remain hidden, for whatever reasons, then whatever might be wrong with Gulen schools would become evident through a process of fair and reasonable scrutiny, scrutiny that would not favor one brand or the other except on the basis of what each offers and what the effects of those offerings will be for students and the society.
As I said earlier, I have deep seated reservations about Gulen schools; I am not in anyway a supporter. Nor am I a supporter of any school that fails to encourage students question dogma, dogma of any type be it in relation to capitalism and socialism, religion and science, good sense and senselessness. It seems to me that Gulen is being picked upon here, not because it doesn’t deserve to be picked on, but other types of schools need some picking on too and that is not happening as it should. Our public schools like to leave religion alone and, in doing so, fail to help students understand that it is a force in our universe that deserves scrutiny. When a religion comes along that some do not like, Scientology, for example, it gets called a pseudo religion even though it has the trappings of many of the other religions that are left alone because they are “mainstream.” Pick upon all and any and then we can have the conversation that need to be had.
Many people who have followed the Gulen Charters have long worried that they are similar to madrassas which are funded worldwide mainly by the Saudis. Steven Emerson has written about this kind of Islamic movement in the US for years.
The Gulens generally focus on Islam, and even though they teach math and science, they always have the religious perspective. It is amazing that the US Government (which searches Americans assiduously at airports, and which spies on our every word) would not only allow Gulen into the country, but allow him to bend the law of the land in this way. Our public schools are funded by all our participation with our taxes, and we believe in separation of church and State.
So why is this enormously rich Islamist man afforded the opportunity of using our taxes to fund his charters that bring only his chosen message to students, while he is enriched by American taxpayers? The word ‘cult’ comes up often in articles about him, similar to Reverend Moon.
And then there is Mayor Bloomberg who also uses public funds for parochial charters such as his all Islamic school, and his all Chasidic school.
The laws of the land seem to be hiding under the bed. Our D of J and our Educator in Chief, join with our Prez in letting all this happen. What will be the end result?
Nigerian Muslims just doused a Christian school with gasoline and lit it on fire burning to death 32 of the Christian school children. I too know many Nigerians. There is still a lot of Lebanese Christian that opened peanut oil factories there and they speak fluent Nigerian. They said it’s very common to see Nigerian children walking down the street conversing in Turkish. Gulen is a cult, their schools are just modern day training grounds for the movement’s creation of a neo Ottoman Caliphate.
Additionally, the janissaries in training are dubbed the “golden generation” by the Gulenists and in fact……….that is what Gulen’s American home is called the “Golden Generation Retreat”
This poster above is a Gulen hijacker, they go on boards and try to derail conversations. They are particularly media savvy as such they have opened a Harmony School of political science and communications. They know the power of the pen and media.
But make no mistake about it, they are worried. As their schools continue to be under scrutiny. Are denied applications, renewals and expansions their time in America robbing our tax dollars is comming to an end.
They are not trained to teach, in fact Turkey has one of the worse educational systems in the world. But they (Gulenists) know how to spin “award winning” and “20,000 on a waiting list” etc., None of which is true, their schools are mediocre at best, many are on academic watch not to mention financial shortfalls and issues.
Wherever they are there is scandal and this will not stop until they are gone. In Fact, in the True Gulen fashion his soundboard propaganda newspaper “Today’s Zaman” has just today attacked one of the organizers of this protest and labeled him a leftist communist.
They are worried, and they should be.
http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=320574
Indeed, and scrutiny is deserved. But not of this movement alone. And, in Nigeria, the nastiness is not caused by Muslims alone. My reading tells me that Christians have not always been the innocent party. And really, the real problems involve more than religious beliefs but it is religion that allows each side to believe that its horrendous actions are sanctioned by God. And who can really find evidence to prove that one side or the other is not being commanded by a deity? It does seem to me rather easy to conclude that neither side receives its orders from anyone or anything divine, but to say this is to deny people’s right to believe. Perhaps this is a “right” we should at least question for it makes getting to the truth of things terribly difficult even though one truth, a very important truth, seems self-evident to anyone who depends on reason.
Thank you Diane for bringing this huge problem to our attention. Hope folks read the links.
Some bright soul – I’m guessing Hasan Ali Yurtsever – went to Fethuhbah in 1998 and said, “Master you’ll never believe it. You know how we have our adherents spending their own money to create private schools for our children as our brothers do business in Nigeria and other countries all over the world? Well in the United States, the government will give us money to run schools and will give us visas to bring our brothers into the US legally where we had to find other means before.” And Fethuhbah said, “Show me and I will believe you because that is ridiculous talk.” And its a good thing that no one bet that it would result in easily $500 million in US taxpayer funds going direct into the Hizmet pocket in less than 15 years. That would be so ridiculous it would have to be true.
Search Gulen as a tag on boilingfrogspost.com for the most accurate accounts of where and why Gulen was created.
And send letters to Hillary Clinton starting now until she is nominated asking why the US Dept of State under her authority saw it wise to increase by multiples the number of unqualified H1-B visas of Turkish “wrestling coaches” or “German teachers” or “education researchers” granted work permission to come to American schools at a time when public systems were laying off teachers by the thousands.
The powers that be R and D know all about this and aren’t disturbed in the least.
You might want to update your post.
If the camel gets his nose in the tent . . . . You know the rest. We are guiding the sword into our own bellies for it to disembowel us. Could not have happened without the weakening of mind and spirit perpetrated by Progressivism, so called, which works through the public schools.
“. . . Progressivism, . . . ” What happened to the other boogeyman-Socialism? You’re confusing me, HU, confusing me-ha ha!
Same thing, Swackerman. Boo! Think Woodrow Wilson and the (gag) Income Tax, FDR and Supreme Court Packing, Obama and the unAffordable Care Act. Progressivism is the “pretty” term, socialism the neutral term, communism the negative term, but all naming the same thing, a belief that the government should cut the pizza and parcel out the slices of GDP according to who your union cronies are. Reward your friends, punish your non-friends(politically). No sense of justice or fairness at all.
“. . . to who your union cronies are.”
Not sure to which “union cronies” you refer. I do not belong to any union, never have, not that it would bother me if I believe that it would help the working environment in which I would be.
I had been a member of the NEA which is a professional organization and not a union. But then again I’ve been a member of the NRA and ACLU also. And the American Archaeology Association, the National Geographic Society, Ducks Unlimited, Boy Scouts and many others that I don’t remember at the moment, but a union, no.
And no, Progressivism is not the same as Socialism and neither are the same as Communism, except perhaps in the lexicon of the Tea Partiers.
Por favor, Duane . . .
Abandona todos tus esperanzas de cambiar este hombre de maleducado, grosero, y crduo a un senor bien educado y conciente . . . sera siempre imposible, verdad?
Robert,
I have no hope of changing HU and that is not the thrust of my posts. I have many dear friends, folks I’ve known since being knee high to a grasshopper (since grade school) who, although wouldn’t consider themselves tea partiers mainly due to social issues, are die hard Randian, free marketeer types and we go at it all the time. I enjoy challenging their thinking. I just enjoy the verbal jousting and can be just as “maleducado y grosero pero no crudo”.
When you let one fundamentalist group, Christians, control the education system and govt. why not all? So that means the Gulens if they bring enough cash to the table. Then all is good. What is the difference between the big three, Jews, Christians and Islamists? Not much to me. All want the end of the world and they are the only ones who know the truth. What else is new. So Gulen is islamist, OK. What is the difference I ask? Fundamentalist is fundamentalist, all the same basically. This is why we are having trouble. Religious believers wanting to impose their religious faiths, please read the definition of this word in your unabridged dictionary, on all else including non believers in a supposedly secular country. That is the problem in Turkey now, the war between the secular Turks and the fundamentalists in power now. That is why Gulen is big in Turkey now and here also.
The difference does not arise from the religions but from the country which they inhabit. Here, contrary to your perception, there is a legitimate separation between church and state. Islam’s theory of government is that the church and state are identical. I’m not sure what Jewish theory is, but Israel seems to be ready to permit many sects of all three religions to exist even if it is a “Jewish” state. All religions claim exclusive truth, which suggests to me that none can be true except metaphorically and that therefore all religions MUST be subordinated to a secular state. Any establishment of religion (i.e. state pays salaries of clergy) is constitutionally prohibited, and should be.
“Any establishment of religion (i.e. state pays salaries of clergy) is constitutionally prohibited, and should be.”
Then how do you justify your support for vouchers and charters which many times sends government monies to religious institutions?
For example:
http://www.liberty.edu/online/graduate-student-financial-aid-fafsa/
But the King’s College is not a typical institution of higher learning. It is a tiny Christian college based in a downtown Manhattan office building, whose mission statement articulates a “commitment to the truths of Christianity and a biblical worldview.”
What financial aid is available at King’s College?
There are many different programs available including the King’s College scholarships and need-based grants, federal campus-based programs such as SEOG Grants, Perkins Loans and federal work-study, the federal Pell Grant and federal Stafford and PLUS Loans. Most King’s College students receive a combination of merit-based scholarships, need-based grants, need-based loans and student employment.
One could say that public money finances religious schools?
There is a huge difference between K-12 public schools where in most (all?) states attendance is mandatory and the post secondary where attendance is by choice.
At the same time if a religious institution (or any institution, i.e., charters and voucher schools) is willing to accept government monies then they should be compelled by law to open the books so that the public may audit and see that the monies are being spent in a fashion that is constitutionally correct.
Really! Consider how much legislation has been motivated directly by people’s religious beliefs. When I was in school, how many good books were kept from me because someone’s God was imagined to disapprove of the content? How much of my life has been governed by absurd notions of sexuality that are said to be in line with Gods desires? Religion pervades in this nation but it rarely gets discussed in terms of how it exerts its force on all, the religious and everyone else. We do not have to eradicate it necessarily, but we do need to talk about it honestly so that comments such as yours are challenged. What is hidden often is what comes to bite you in the ass and my ass is sore after these many years of being forbidden to talk openly about people’s beliefs in the supernatural, fairytales substituting for good sense and the authors winning high praise and positions of authority because they believe in what reason tells me is unbelievable.
I personally am happy to entertain your discussions here. I have no dispute with your critique of the doctrines and dogmas advanced. I personally happen to have an affection and taste for my own denomination (Episcopalian), but I recognize that it is almost a matter of taste with me. I have also come to appreciate more the wisdom of some of the advice about living that my denomination offers. But I never permitted any censorship of my reading.
Some people do take their religion with a literal seriousness that astonishes me. And the ‘social censorship’ of what one can say in such groups is uncomfortable. The ‘religion’ of public education, of socialism, of communism, of progressivism, is comparable, and I personally experience daily on this list the hostility of the ‘true believers’ here, e.g. Linda, sweetpea, DeeDee, Duane, Robert Rendo . . . well I seem to be naming almost everyone one, don’t I. I am seen as having bad manners to question this group’s assumptions, just as I would be seen as having bad manners if I went into a Catholic church and asked to test the wine for the DNA of Jesus. Anathema!!!!!!
What interests me more, however, than Monkey Trial debunking, is the question of WHY in the mind of so many religion is such a powerful and passionate force. What is the psychology of it? Is it just ignorance of the nature of language and metaphor in relation to the mind? Why did the writers of the constitution see fit to protect freedom of worship and free exercise of religion so explicitly? I just don’t know. If you can enlighten me on that, I’d be grateful.
You do raise a troubling point, Duane. It does not seem to apply to government funding that goes to colleges. The GI Bill could be used at Notre Dame. Whether the same rules should be applied to secondary and elementary schools remains debatable. Prior to the invasion of the USA by Islam (Gulen), I would have dismissed your concerns by saying that the money went to the parents, not the school, and the parents used it where they wished. That is the dodge being used in Arizona. Although I haven’t yet, in my own mind, drawn the line where you do, I may well have to eventually. Probably you are correct that no tax money should go directly or indirectly to religious schools. I do think the matter is debatable still, pending some Supreme Court ruling on what “establishing a religion” means. In order to exclude the Islamists from feeding from the public pig, I may also have to exclude the Catholics and the Baptists.
Harlan, to answer your question about why “it (religion) is such a powerful force”, and why has it become so important in the American landscape?
Probably the bigger picture and most universal answer is that religion is man-made.
Man has created religion and god to be in his own image because man needs something to relate to and nneds to regulate his sense of morality, right and wrong.
Man also needs to express his own power or lack thereof by assigning it to deities in order to, as a mortal, acquire or have such power. Included in this power is a dire fear and loathing of death which is solved by having an eternal afterflife.
Man also needs the righteousness of religion and deity to further man’s own personal causes (this is on a spectrum, perhaps, that goes from good to evil). . . hence the crusades and colonialism that used “god” as a “reason” to conquer lands and people and convert them to Christianity. Then there was the Inquisition to get rid of, punish, or threaten anyone who did not “fit the Catholic mold”, but any historian worth his salt will tell you that such a mold hid other political motives.
In our forefathers’ case, they probably resented being forced to worship in the same faith as the king, but this motivation decades later would spin into other motivations that had little to do with faith and more to do with opportunism. Fast forward a few centuries later, and you get people like the late Tammy Faye and Jim Baker.
Of course, many good people and causes have arisen out of religion as well. It is not a one way street.
But I think these motivations are universal to all religions, at the very very least, they are available at any time as a potential modus operandi to any religion because it is ultimately man, and not deity, that runs the religion show.
Eve did not come from the rib of Adam nearly as much as she came from the imagination and conscience of homo sapien . . .
Makes sense enough to me. If character comes first, then where does character come from, and why does religion get special constitutional protection?
Was this protest purposely planned during Ramadan?
Thanks for this Sharon; what’s happening with the FBI investigation launched years ago about violations of HB visa program and alleged kickbacks?
Apparently our tax dollars are paying for visas and graduate degrees for foreign teachers and administrators, according to the petition.
There are a lot discrepancies between the English and Turkish version of the programs on Facebook page. Who are protesting Fethullah Gulen? http://gulencharterschools.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-are-protesting-fethullah-gulen.html
Hey Diane, if you believe that you are impartial, you should publish my comments, too. I believe you have that conscience.
http://gulencharterschools.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-are-protesting-fethullah-gulen.html
I am from Turkey. I want to explain Gulen is a trojen hourse against our secularism ,republic and free democracy. The group of this movement using islam like a shield to hide. They are spreading around like viruses. They have ideas about to
coerce Turkish nation. We will be against this fake islamic brain washing and earning money without working system.
Diane, thank you very much for sharing this excellent post with us.
I’m from Turkey too. Fethullah Gulen has transformed a very big part of the Turkish youth into dangerous Islamist fundamentalists by brainwashing them at his schools over two decades. Most of the police using excessive force against the protestors in Turkey are also products of his teaching (they are graduates of his police schools in Turkey), which is a good example of how vicious these people are. While this is a guy who couldn’t even survive in his own country because of these acts, it’s totally inexplicable that the US gave him a green card and let him open so many charter schools. In addition to the charter schools, he also has strong presence in many top-notch universities in the US, where he is funding houses for graduate and undergraduate students, so his followers can keep brainwashing these young people. The US Government should become aware of the stealthy acts of this guy and take away his power before he causes damage to young Americans too. Please support the petition against him and spread the word.
Sharon Higgins has made some very chilling accusations which may be true and, if they are, should be taken very seriously. I think it important that sources be made available so that others can do what is necessary to get at the truth of these matters. If you have viable sources please share them. I do know several people who are, in various ways, attached to the Gulen movement and before I confront them with what I have been hearing here, I want to know that the charges being made are true. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer.
Some fact-checking about the protests on Fethullah Gulen. A really informative piece.
http://gulencharterschools.blogspot.com/2013/07/part-2-some-fact-checking-about.html
Open season for the corrupt!