Gülen movement has spent 1.5 million dollars for lobbying against Armenian Genocide recognition: Turkish Website

YEREVAN, JULY 28, ARMENPRESS. The supporters of the ideology of the Gülen movement in Turkey and the U.S.A. in the last 8 years have spent 1.5 million dollars for lobbying against the Armenian Genocide recognition. This is, as reports "Armenpress", according to the Turkish "Haber 10" news website, citing the American Buzzfeed website.

It is noted that since 2007 for lobbying against the recognition of the Armenian Genocide the Gülen movement has made a donation of $ 1.5 million to the U.S. politicians. Among those who have received donations are listed such persons, as U.S. President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others.

Muhammed Fethullah Gülen(born 27 April 1941) is a Turkishpreacher,former imam, writer,and Islamic opinion leader. He is the founder of theGülen movement (sometimes known asHizmet). He currently lives in a self-imposed exile inSaylorsburg, Pennsylvania, United States. Gülen teaches anAnatolian(Hanafi) version ofIslam, deriving fromSunniMuslim scholar Said Nursî’s teachings. Gülen is actively involved in the societal debate concerning the future of the Turkish state, and Islam in the modern world. He has been described in the English-language media as "one of the world's most important Muslim figures.However, his Gülen movement has been described as "having the characteristics of acult" and its secretiveness and influence inTurkish politicslikened to "an IslamicOpus Dei". TheGülen movementis a transnational Islamic civic society movement inspired by Gülen's teachings. His teachings abouthizmet (altruistic service to the "common good") have attracted a large number of supporters inTurkey,Central Asia, and increasingly in other parts of the world. Gülen movement participants have founded a number of institutions across the world, which claim to promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue activities.

TheGülen movementhas millions of followers in Turkey, as well as many more abroad. Beyond the schools established by Gülen's followers, it is believed that many Gülenists hold positions of power in Turkey'spolice forcesandjudiciary. Turkish and foreign analysts believe Gülen also has sympathizers in the Turkish parliament and that his movement controls the widely-read Islamic conservativeZamannewspaper, the privateBank Asyabank, theSamanyolu TVtelevision station, and many other media and business organizations, including theTurkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists(TUSKON).

Despite Gülen's and his followers' claims that the organization is non-political in nature, analysts believe that a number of corruption-related arrests made against allies of Turkish Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdoğanreflect a growing political power struggle between Gülen and the prime minister. These arrests led to the2013 corruption scandal in Turkey, which the rulingJustice and Development Party(AKP)'s supporters (along with Erdoğan himself) and the opposition parties alike have said was choreographed by Gülen after Erdoğan's government came to the decision early in December 2013 to shut down many of his movement's private Islamic schools in Turkey.