A/HRC/37/50/Add.2 FETULLAH GÜLEN AND FETÖ 1. BRIEF HISTORY OF FETÖ The foundations of FETÖ were laid by Fetullah Gülen in Izmir in 1966. In the early 1970s Fetullah Gülen and an inner circle of friends established the core cadre for the organization. The organization fed on perceptions of exclusion among Turkish society’s conservative, pious section. The perception was that the traditionally secular state had excluded religious people from politics and state institutions. The regime had to be more Islamic, but in the way Fetullah Gülen understood it. Solution for success advocated by Gülen was to be patient, to portray the movement as a benevolent civil society organization and gradually infiltrate key state institutions.1 In other words, Gülen aspired capturing the State from within rather than attacking it from outside. To this end, the organization has moved with secrecy rather than transparency and built a wall of invisibility around itself to give the impression that it was non-existent. 2 They exploited religious themes and concentrated their activities particularly on students and other youth groups aged 13-18 years. Fetullah Gülen communicated his views through sermons and speeches recorded and distributed on audiocassettes and videotapes. Communal gatherings and particularly summer camps were other methods used to disseminate Gülen’s views on religion to a larger group of followers. By the end of 1970’s, Gülen had already become a leader of a distinct, cultish religious group. In the process the movement became double-faced. The visible face was nonconfrontational, charity-oriented, education movement. The darker face was a secretive, highly hierarchical, anti-democratic, self-styled religious formation around the persona of Fetullah Gülen, a cult of personality. In short, the organization gradually turned from a religious movement into a secretive operational structure aimed to transform society by taking control of the Turkish state from within. As its strength grew, the organization began to claim a messianic mission at a global level, depicting Fetullah Gülen as the “Imam of the Universe”; “the Chosen One”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gptKWc089A: “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe … You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey… Until that time, any step taken would be too early - like breaking an egg without waiting the full 40 days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.” 2 “Presence of our friends in vital bodies like Court Houses, Civil Services or in another important body should not be considered as individual acts. These people are our guarantee for the future in these bodies. They are the guarantee of our presence.”. “As of 1967, the number of those educated (by him) has been 13460. The educated people have already been placed in some institutions. The services should be secret and swift. In order to realize an Islamic revolution in Turkey, two conditions should be met: the first one is to gain the support of the 40% of public; and second one is to obtain political and economic support from the communities within the foreign States (both Muslim and non-Muslim). When Turkey comes to the point where these two conditions are met, our members in top positions within the state will take action (15 April 1987, Istanbul, during the 2-month training camp of 36”regional imams”). 1 19