Media exposes Gülen Movement’s global structure

The Gülen Movement's worldwide hierarchical structure has been revealed by local media sources. The Gülen Movement, which the government considers a threat to national security, had members begin their activities through the aid from the movement-owned daily, Zaman, and pro-Gülen Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON). Also, the Gülen Movement's nationwide organizational structure was recently exposed by Sabah daily's Şaban Arslan and Hayrettin Bektaş in a multi-part series where they claimed to have found that the movement allegedly used its imams, both in cities and state institutions, to try and topple the government in 2013.

According to local media sources, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S., had given himself the title "imam of the universe" and designed a structure to empower his movement by appointing "imams" – a term the movement uses for its agents – to different continents, countries, cities, districts and neighborhoods. The recent findings claim that the "imams" and members of the movement first establish Gülenist houses in a destination country with the aid of Zaman and TUSKON. Once members of the movement established these houses in countries, they then transferred post-secondary education students from Turkey to the houses and later provided scholarships to the children of the destination countries' authorities.

The Gülen Movement, which operates like a global network, manages 2,600 educational institutions in 160 countries, and the system operates with an alleged designated plan. The movement's strategy to maintain and operate its work flawlessly firstly includes providing scholarships to the children of those designated countries' authorities and bureaucrats to obtain higher education in Turkish universities. TUSKON allegedly later meets with the country's businessmen to begin monetary connections in order to obtain legal cover for its work in the country.

Furthermore, sources claim that the Gülen Movement uses "himmet" – which is the technical name used for the fundraising meetings organized by the Gülen Movement – to finance the luxurious living of the imams in countries with Gülen Movement institutions. The imams of the Gülenist "parallel structure" are also allegedly responsible for all-expense-paid trips to Turkey organized for the countries' officials.

The recent finding by Turkish daily, Star, revealed that a former Istanbul imam of the Gülen Movement, Ahmet Kara, was appointed as the imam of Kenya in 2007. In 2009, when Barack Obama became the U.S. president, Kara was invited to the presidential inauguration. One of the most striking claims of this report was the reason for Kara's invitation to the presidential inauguration that Kara and members of the Gülen Movement allegedly had close-ties with Obama's family living in Kenya and the movement was providing free education to Obama's relatives.

Additionally, Gülen and authorities in the movement are allegedly responsible with the appointing of other imams worldwide. While the imams abroad are responsible for establishing strong connections with the authorities of countries where the movement operates, the imams in Turkey are allegedly divided in two – a legal set of institutions, mainly nongovernmental organizations and educational corporations, and an illegal, undercover wing, which consists of regionally appointed members of the movement.