The "They Resemble FETÖ's Early Years" Claim

Distorted

Claim

The Furkan Foundation and Alparslan Kuytul resemble the early years of the Gülen community: a large religious community, a foundation running on donations, work directed at young people and education. Since they are following the same path, they will in time arrive at the same end.

Claimed by: A comparison repeated on social media and in some newspaper columns; the same claim was also carried into an official investigation through a BİMER tip-off dated 20 July 201620 July 2016

Fact

The documents on this page came out of the case file opened after the operation of 30 January 2018; the examination they contain, however, belongs to an earlier time, to the years 2016-2017. Today there is a separate and ongoing judicial process; this page does not deal with it.

What the claim rests on is a list of resemblances: a large religious community, a foundation running on donations, work directed at young people and education. These three are shared by hundreds of structures in Turkey. The question that actually has to be asked is a different one: is there a covert cadre inside state institutions?

That question did not remain at the level of guesswork; it was formally asked in two separate places. Following a BİMER tip-off dated 20 July 2016, the Antalya TEM Branch Directorate carried out an inquiry under seven headings; on the page of the record in our hands, beneath each of the five headings that are visible stands the same phrase: No record was found under this heading. In a separate investigation the KOM Branch of the Adana Provincial Police Directorate reported the same result to the prosecutor's office in its letter dated 15 March 2017: no ByLock record, no Bank Asya account activity, no membership in the associations that were closed down, no telephone contact with suspects against whom proceedings had been taken.

What is left is a difference of method: open conferences, a magazine and public foundation activity are not the same thing as a covert structure inside state institutions. Moreover, in the years when the Gülen movement was at its strongest, Kuytul was on the side that criticised it.

Why this label, "Distorted"?

Because there is nothing here that is invented from beginning to end. The observation the comparison rests on is correct: the community is large, the financing runs on donations, and the weight of the work lies on young people and education.

But these features say not what a structure does, only what it looks like. The distortion lies at the point where the leap is made from the observation to the conclusion: a resemblance was shown, and then the claim of a covert cadre was put in the place of evidence. The evidence for that conclusion was sought, and it was not found.

What is a resemblance, what is a claim?

The force of the comparison is intuitive: a structure is growing, it collects donations, it takes an interest in young people, it carries out educational work. The Gülen movement, too, began like that. Therefore the end will be the same as well.

What this line of reasoning passes over is this: what became a matter for the courts after 15 July 2016 was not that a religious community was large. The accusation was that of building a covert cadre inside state institutions, stealing examination questions, running an encrypted communication network and, finally, attempting an armed coup. The resemblance claim touches on none of these elements; it is effective because it shows only the outward appearance and leaves the conclusion to the reader.

The possibility was investigated: the records of 2016-2017

The part of this claim most often left out is that the possibility was actually investigated. Following a BİMER tip-off dated 20 July 2016, the Tip-off Evaluation Commission of the Antalya TEM Branch Directorate opened an inquiry. According to the record, the questioning was carried out under seven headings; beneath each of the five headings legible on the page in our hands stands the same phrase.

The same questions were asked in Adana as well. Upon the request of the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor's Office dated 8 February 2017, the KOM Branch Directorate of the Adana Provincial Police Directorate carried out an examination and reported the result within investigation no. 2016/85789 to the prosecutor's office in its letter dated 15 March 2017: no ByLock record, no Bank Asya account activity, no membership of a closed-down association, no telephone contact with suspects against whom proceedings had been taken. In the administrative audit of the foundation as well, the names of those in charge were checked through the OHAL Bureau of the Adana Governor's Office, and no finding emerged.

The scans and the details of these two documents are on separate pages: the "He has a connection with FETÖ" claim and the "The Furkan Foundation is part of the FETÖ structure" claim.

The value of the documents lies in who wrote them. None of them is a defence text; all three are the correspondence of the very institutions charged with investigating the claim.

The difference in method

The definition of a covert structure is secrecy: a cadre that does not state its identity, closed communication, a hierarchy invisible inside the institution. The activity of the Furkan Foundation, by contrast, is built on openness — conferences in public halls, talks that are recorded and published, a foundation with a known name and address, a magazine sold at the newsstand. A structure cannot at the same time record and publish every word it says and also be secret.

The difference in thesis

What the two structures say is not the same either. Kuytul's Furkan Nesli article of 4 February 2016 takes up line by line the interview Gülen gave to the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and objects to precisely the thesis at the centre of that interview: to the idea that if people can live their religion in a democracy, an Islamic state is not necessary. According to Kuytul, this means disregarding the social rulings of the religion and implanting the understanding of "moderate Islam".

So what we have here is not two travellers on the same road, but two opposing theses. The resemblance claim does not take up this difference, because if it did it would undo itself. The details of the article are on the page of the "On the same line as the Gülen community" claim.

Why do we say "Distorted"?

We did not say "Baseless", because the observation on which the claim is built is not invented. The large community, the financing by donation, and the work with young people and in education really do exist, and there is no need to hide them.

The distortion lies in that observation being carried to a conclusion it does not bear. What a structure looks like and what it does are separate questions, and the answer to the second can only be given with evidence. In this file evidence was looked for; and those who looked were not the defenders of the claim, but the institutions conducting the investigation. What was found is written in the three documents mentioned above.

Other topics dealt with in the same group: the "He criticised Gülen only after 15 July" claim and the "He supported the Turkish Olympiads" claim.