There will be a press conference today at the National Press Club to announce that the Republic of Turkey has hired an American law firm “to conduct a global investigation” of the organization led by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in seclusion in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. The Gulen organization has a charter network of nearly 150 schools in the United States. The F.B.I. is investigating some of them now, but no reports have been released.
Investigation into Gülen Movement
December 9, 2015 10:00 AM
Location: National Press Club Zenger Room
Press Conference to Announce New Legal Action, Widening Investigation into Gülen Movement and Its Nationwide Charter School Network
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The Republic of Turkey has retained international law firm Amsterdam & Partners LLP to conduct a global investigation into the activities of the organization led by the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.
“We have been retained by the Republic to expose allegedly unlawful conduct by the Gulen network worldwide,” said Robert Amsterdam, founding partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, during a press conference held today at the National Press Club in Washington DC. “The activities of the Gulen network, including its penetration of the Turkish judiciary and police, as well as its political lobbying abroad, should concern everyone who cares about the future of democracy in Turkey.”
The Gulen network, which operates more than 100 charter schools in the U.S., has become the subject of federal and local law enforcement and regulatory investigation in the United States, said Amsterdam. According to separate cases filed against Gulen affiliated schools, the group has allegedly engaged in systemic abuse of the American visa system, Amsterdam says.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What’s funny is that the Los Angeles branch of the Gulen schools — here called “Magnolia” schools — have been in total financial turmoil, so much so that LAUSD took the rare step of closing them — which was reversed as they promised to fix the problems
under their new leader, arch-school-privatizer (& former LAUSD Board Member) Caprice Young.
With a straight face, Young has denied that her Magnolia schools have any ties to Gulen and Fethullah Gulen, the group’s Turkish Imam. When asked, she actually acted totally oblivious, as if she’d never heard this before, dismissing the notion as ridiculous.
You really don’t know them, Ms. Young?
They’re the ones signing your checks, Caprice!!!!
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They seem to be untouchable, politically. There’s always an “ongoing investigation” and nothing ever comes of it.
I don’t get it- I know lawmakers and their staff get free trips but that’s just ordinary quid pro quo graft- I don’t know why THIS organization seems to have so much political clout.
It’s just nuts that they claim they need to bring in teachers from Turkey. Can you imagine if a US public school claimed they needed to bring in employees from another country? It would be national news.
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The operant words you use Jack, are “when asked”….and yes, Caprice who ran CCSA and grew wealthy from her connection with charter schools, is also pretty much the only person the LA Times chooses to interview when making their own pitches for increasing charters. She has little concern about her Turkish Imam boss as she tries to use PR to re-write his history and as she protects his interests. She just influenced the BoE to allow him to open three more schools, so he now has eleven Magnolia charters in LA County despite their mismanagement history.
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Glad to learn of this investigation into the Gulen Movement and the Gulen Charter Schools. I mention them often and did again in the Rafe Esquith brouhaha post yesterday. Thanks Diane, for keeping us up on both of these investigations…and as I write this, I think of the huge disparity in the potential for damage of these two men.
Esquth is charged with using vulgar language and sending similar emails.
Gulen has brought into the US with Green Cards paid for by American taxpayers, over 2500 Middle Eastern men, ostensibly as teachers and administrators for his many schools, but it has been reported that many have just disappeared throughout the country, which might raise a red flag to our government after the most recent Islamic terrorist killings in San Bernardino.
It would seem to rational minds, that there is far more for us to worry about than jumping to conclusions about Esquith…but that Gulen needs to be a top priority, since it is well known that he uses the vast amounts of our taxpayer cash to foment war in the Middle East,and that he is a dedicated believer in Sharia Law.
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It’s really an amazing story. US lawmakers encouraged a Turkish religious group to set up a charter chain all over the country- 100% publicly-funded.
I mean, the complex internal Turkish politics of it is almost beside the point. The thing is extraordinary just on the US end without even going to the various factions in Turkey.
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It’s a disgrace that it’s taking a foreign government, trading oil sold by ISIS and acting as a conduit for its fighters, and acting in its own political interests, to do what US legislators and investigators should have been doing all along.
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Here’s a story about one of Magnolia’s teachers: (the mug shot’s kinda scary)
http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20150911/carson-teacher-arrested-in-alleged-sexual-relationship-with-underage-girl
————————
Carson teacher arrested in alleged sexual relationship with underage girl
By Larry Altman, Daily Breeze
Posted: 09/11/15, 5:42 PM PDT | Updated: on 09/11/2015
5 Comments
A teacher at a Carson school is suspected of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl, sheriff’s deputies said Friday.
Mark Falkowski, 28, a teacher at Magnolia Science Academy No. 3, was arrested Thursday following the discovery of inappropriate email communication and Skype conversations with the girl dating back to early 2014, Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Jeffrey Hallock said.
Falkowski was booked at the Orange County jail on suspicion of sending harmful matter to a minor.
Sheriff’s Department investigations were “made aware of the inappropriate relationship after discovery of several inappropriate e-mails between Falkowski and the victim” about a week ago, Hallock said.
“Investigators began collecting evidence and obtained information that indicated that Falkowski and the victim were still involved in a sexual relationship, even though the victim now lives out of state,” Hallock said.
The girl’s age was not disclosed, but she is younger than 18, Hallock said.
In addition to his teaching job, Falkowski coaches a female youth hockey team based in Long Beach, but players come from throughout Southern California.
“Investigators believe that based on his perpetual contact with female juveniles in his capacity as a hockey coach, there may be additional victims,” Hallock said.
Falkowski was held on $100,000 bail and scheduled to appear Tuesday for arraignment. More charges are pending.
Deputies asked anyone with information about victims to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Unit at 714-647-7060 or 714-647-7000.
According to the school, Magnolia Science Academy No. 3 is a public charter school that offers a college preparatory education. Students come primarily from the communities of Carson, Gardena, Wilmington, Compton and Torrance. Students are primarily black and Latino and more than 85 percent receive free and reduced-price lunch.
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Missouri has a sophisticated grasp of education issues, but still, I thought it was necessary to post something at the Post Dispatch current issues to help them sort out some of the issues. St. Louis does have a Gulen charter among its growing collection.
“This Turkey thing is too hot for Donald Trump to handle.”
I realize he has an accurate grip on virtually everything, but he needs to be extra careful about this. Usually these things are no brainers—-just calculate what the most irresponsible thing to say would be to keep him in the headlines.
1.come down really hard on Amsterdam and partners for investigating? uhhh, no.
2.recklessly cast suspicion on Gulen charter schools, who are doing some admirably effective union busting of public schools? unthinkable!
3.Side with Turkey. According to religiosity polls, 97.8% of the population identifies as Muslim. Can he negotiate unanimous agreement that none will come across our borders, wanting to share in Gulen profits? Possible, because those who try that could be shot by the Turkish Imam. Still, too risky.
Probably the best option is to wait for Hillary to say something, and just offer a generic rant about how stupid she is. She will have as much difficulty with this Turkey stuff as he will.
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The Gulenists moved in on both Bill and Hillary Clinton years ago. See: “Followers Of A Mysterious Turkish Islamic Cleric Have Donated Heavily To Hillary’s Campaign And Family Charity” @ http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/22/followers-of-a-mysterious-turkish-islamic-cleric-have-donated-heavily-to-hillarys-campaign-and-family-charity/
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St Louis has three of those schools.
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My newly updated list of Gulen-linked charter schools is @ http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/list-of-us-gulen-schools.html
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The Gulen charter school enrollment for 2013-2014 was 66,978 students. I fully expect it to be over 70,000 by now because more schools have been opened and additional grade levels have been added on (charter schools often take several years to add in all the grade levels for which they were approved). Details @ http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
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One of many questions to be asked is this: Are the Gulen charters really faith-based Muslim schools in disguise? If so, tax support for them would violate the US First Amendment and comparable provisions in most state constitutions, i addition to being opposed by 2/3 of Americans. We need answers — now. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
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Edd,,,we are lucky to have Sharon Higgins commenting here since I believe her to the most informed researcher on Gulen. I hope everyone reads her additional info posted on her site.
It is my understanding that when Gulen first started opening both businesses and charter schools in the US, starting with the Clinton administration allowing him to take refuge from Erdogan, he did teach Islamic religion and Sharia Law. However, he was challenged by the government on the religion classes, and so set classroom religious education aside and instead to the tack of focusing on math and science. His schools have had success in teaching math and he advertises this as a come-on to parents. However, it has been reported that his teachers take weekend, gender separated, field trips where they do teach the Muslim religion. Also he sends his students and their parents on trips to Turkey.
Please Sharon….do expand on my comments since much of what I learned has been at your site. And thanks for the update here on all the schools he owns in the US. He is the owner of the most charter schools in our nation. And his secret activities in his heavily guarded palace in the Poconos are to be questioned, since he seems to be a billionaire from garnering billions from American taxpayers. He nurtures, using all this money, close associates within our government, and also those who wield great political power.
Why is he allowed to do this? Why can he bring in so many Middle Eastern men on Green Cards who have no work or life oversight other than his?
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Just back from the Amsterdam & Associates event at National Press Club
3 takeaways
The lawsuit is to be filed in Middle District of Pennsylvania. Plaintiffs are 3 Turkish nationals who were allegedly wrongly imprisoned by Gulen’s adherents working in the police and security services in Turkey in the 2010 to 2012 timeframe on supposedly trumped up charges. The complaint alleges violations and grounds based on the Alien Torts Statute. The 3 Turkish plaintiffs say they were targeted because their ‘movement’ was identified by Gulen himself. The activities at the charter schools in U.S. are mentioned but not in any way part of the accusations in the lawsuit.
Robert Amsterdam spoke about the charter schools here at length. He presented a poster-size document which he claimed shows a ‘quota list’ for Turkish teachers to keep track of progress to proselytize students at individual schools. That doc was not in the packet distributed. He said it came from a whistleblower. The law firm is looking for more whistleblowers.
He also called on American politicians to return any political donations coming from suspected straw man donors inside the Gulen movement. He basically said: the time for claiming “I didn’t know where the money comes from” is now over.
One Reuters from the press conference are already on the wires:
By Humeyra Pamuk
ISTANBUL, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Lawyers hired by the Turkish government have filed a civil suit against a political enemy of President Tayyip Erdogan in a U.S. court alleging human rights abuses, in the first such action against the U.S.-based cleric outside Turkey.
Robert Amsterdam, founder of UK-based firm Amsterdam and Partners LLP, told Reuters the suit, dated Dec. 7, had been filed in a U.S. district court in Pennsylvania, where Erdogan’s former ally, cleric Fethullah Gulen, has lived since 1999.
The suit underscores Erdogan’s widening campaign against Gulen, whom he describes as a terrorist and accuses of building a “parallel structure” within the police and judiciary to topple the government, something Gulen denies.
This year the government seized the assets of Islamic lender Bank Asya and took over at least 22 other firms with ties to Gulen, including some opposition media outlets. The crackdown has helped revive fears about press freedom in Turkey.
The U.S. suit alleges Gulen ordered his followers in the police to unlawfully arrest and detain members of a rival Islamic movement in 2009, according to a copy of the complaint seen by Reuters.
WIRETAPS, ARRESTS
The suit names three plaintiffs, individuals, not widely known, who have criticised Gulen. The Turkish government, though hiring the lawyers, is not named as a plaintiff.
The suit alleges that, on the cleric’s orders, his followers “illegally planted evidence, fabricated search warrants, secured illegal wiretaps and ultimately arrested plaintiffs without any legal basis”.
Amsterdam, of Amsterdam and Partners LLP, told Reuters the claims against Gulen and 50 of his unnamed and unidentified followers were being brought under the Alien Tort Statue, an 18th century law that has been used to try human rights cases from around the world in U.S. courts.
“We’re suing them…in respect to these false imprisonments. Mr Gulen has a long history in Turkey of engaging his followers aggressively and falsely imprisoning hundreds of people,” he said.
The suit, seeking punitive damages, said Gulen has up to 10 million followers worldwide and is estimated to control at least $25 billion in assets. It says he controls dozens of business entities and more than 120 charter schools in the United States.
Gulen is facing a similar suit in a Turkish court, accusing him of plotting against a rival religious group by fabricating evidence and charges. He also faces domestic charges of trying to overthrow the government.
Erdogan, a pious Muslim, was formerly a Gulen ally. The two publicly fell out after police and prosecutors Erdogan saw as sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation that touched on the Turkish leader’s inner circle in 2013.
Erdogan has since moved to purge the police and judiciary of what he sees as a wide network of conspirators.
The government hired Amsterdam and Partners this year to look into Gulen’s “Hizmet” (Service) movement and its activities worldwide.
Amsterdam told Reuters that several Turkish teachers in the United States had contacted him, complaining they had been given orders to recruit students for the movement. He said the testimonies could trigger fresh court cases against Gulen and his followers.
Gulen denies all accusations that he aggressively recruits followers.
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And thank you Mr. Wang for that first hand report. So valuable for us.
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Agree with Ellen Lubic.
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Here’s the video of the press conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LFKnL6YTJU
Mr. Amsterdam’s presentation about the Gulen charter schools starts at 8:00 min.
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I am not defending the Gulen movement, but Turkey has become a dictatorship. Journalists are being arrested weekly and people are being jailed for make fun of Erdogan. The Gulen movement is a minor distraction to the bigger picture in Turkey.
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Ken…with all due respect and you know you are one of my favorite education writer/journalists, I disagree here.
Gulen and The Gulen Movement are not just a footnote to what is happening in Turkey with Erdogan’s religious autocracy. These two were close associates until the late 1990s when the split occurred and Gulen fled to the US. Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all welcomed and protected him, not to be nice guys, but rather because he offers them some sort of advertised, modified version of Islam and of the Muslim faith, and they understand his vast power in the Middle Eastern debacles. Their published reports continually refer to him as a “moderate Islamist” whatever that means. He self promotes that he only wants world peace, yet delving into his history, he also approves of and supports the Ottoman Empire, and also is a strict believer in Sharia Law.
This anachronistic persona is continually reported on by Turkish Americans and some Turkish citizens who report that he wants Erdogan overthrown by even more harsh radicals, and then he wants to return to be the prime leader of Turkey…and that much of the current battles are of his doing.
My own writing at City Watch Today online had many Turkish people commenting on this. I still get emails from some and they are not flattering to Gulen and goals for Turkish takeover.
I have read reports of why he only teaches Turkish language in his many charter schools, and that he hopes and plans for the large Turkish population living in America to return to their native country when he becomes the leader. SharonHiggins.com, and O’Hanian.com have similar reports.
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The Gulen Movement goes far beyond the general notion of Islam. It is a grandiose cult that envisions domination of the world. Its thinking is about slowly and steadily and stealthily working towards a Turk-centric grand and cosmic destiny under Fethullah Gulen’s guidance and leadership. Some of its common symbolism involves raindrops or drops of water (=individuals) all flowing together to become one world where everyone harmoniously speaks the common language of Turkish and believes in demi-God Gulen’s teachings. Gulen has built up and trained a “Golden Generation” to carry out this work.
Perhaps you can now understand why the image of a titan carrying the world on his shoulders is the symbol for Fethullah Gulen’s compound, and also why Gulen’s sermon website is herkul.org (Hercules). Clearly not just about Islam. The Turkish language and cultural instruction going on at the schools is to gently orient the students and their families towards that Gulenist Turk-centric direction. Every school opened, every student who learns how to say “merhaba,” every trip to Turkey taken, every Turkish language contest attended, every Turkish folk dance practiced, every Turkish food tasted — every one of those little bits accomplished is a drop contributing to the Gulen Movement’s grand plan. Gulen’s brand of Islam can be introduced later — but slowly and only to the most susceptible students. But none of this can ever be talked about out loud to outsiders.
As for the current troubling leadership in Turkey, we must always remember that the AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would NEVER have acquired this much power this quickly if it were not for the massive and coordinated support they received from Fethullah Gulen and his followers for more than a decade. Gulenist media, police, prosecutors, judges, and others worked together to erode the power of their secularist opponents. It was only after that entity was neutered that Erdogan and Gulen entered in a death struggle for the final power. Erdogan is on top for the time being, but anything can happen… especially in cases like this when the CIA is a long involved player.
That American school children have been brought into this foul mix, that US taxpayers are being force to hand about $500 million over to the Gulenists in 2015-2016 alone, and that still hardly any politician will address these issues before the public at this late date of December 2015 tells us how incredibly crooked the whole thing is.
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One has to note though, that the current Turkish government under Erdogan is not good at all, that he has been islamizing the country, and ruining the democracy there, turning a secular democracy into an islamist dictatorship.
Of course that does not excuse Gulen in any way. Just to be cognizant of who the current Turkish leadership is.
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Fethullah Gulen and his movement are featured prominently in the 2008 RAND Corp report “The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey.” In the final section the authors proposed four different possible scenarios: 1. a moderate path, 2. creeping Islamization, 3. judicial closing down of the AKP, and 4. military intervention.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG726.html
Clearly the closest outcome is #2. But back then the authors minimized its possibility stating: “However, in our view, this scenario is less likely, for several reasons. First, it would lead to greater political polarization and would likely provoke intervention by the military.”
Well one thing RAND Corp did NOT anticipate is how Gulen and the AKP would work together to neutralize the military (guardians of the secular state) by jailing top military leaders and forcing sham trials upon them.
As I stated above, Erdogan and Gulen entered into a death match for power in late 2013 after they wiped out the traditional military guardians. Check out “Turkey’s Two Thugs” by Claire Berlinski.
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon1223cb.html
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