Fethullah Gülen is indeed behind Turkey’s democratization process

“In a recent commentary (“What’s Really Behind Turkey’s Coup Arrests,” Feb. 25, 2010) published in Foreign Policy magazine, and another one (“Turkey’s Turning Point,” Feb.26, 2010) in Newsweek, Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) accuses Fethullah Gülen, 72, a retired preacher, prolific writer, and an advocate of interfaith-intercultural dialogue who lives in a self-imposed exile in a small town of Pennsylvania, of being the one responsible for the recent arrests of the former Turkish army generals who apparently plotted several times to overthrow Turkey’s democratically elected Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.

Although he intentionally interprets and portrays it falsely and misleadingly, Çağaptay finally got at least one thing right. Fethullah Gulen can indeed be plausibly argued to be a force, albeit indirect, behind the Turkish authorities’ recent crackdown on the unlawful, dictatorial and anti-democratic formations nested within the Turkish army, police, bureaucracy, academia, business and wherever they hinder democratization of the Turkish society.”

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