Mustafa Yeşil is one of four exiled Turks whom the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, tried to have extradited when he visited his British counterpart Theresa May in 2017. Turkey’s AKP (Justice and Development Party) government accuses Yeşil of belonging to what it calls FETÖ (Fethullah Terrorist Organisation), the movement led by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who is in self-exile in Pennsylvania and accused of being behind the failed military coup of 15 July 2016 (1). According to US academic Sophia Pandya, the movement may have as many as 10 million supporters worldwide. Yeşil is one of the few people in direct contact with Gülen, the hoca efendi (master) in whose name he speaks.

Yeşil, who is in his late 50s, has a background typical of the Gülenist apparatchiks who run ‘Hizmet’ (service), as they call their movement. In the 1970s he studied theology at Marmara University in Istanbul and then taught religion. At his north London home, he told me about the strong impression made on him in 1983 by the sermons of Gülen, who belongs to the tradition of Saïd Nursî (1878-1960), a Kurdish religious figure with links to Sufism. Now Yeşil is an abi (big brother) and head of the heyet (council); he runs the community’s European branch and oversees the imams (key contact points) in Europe, where many Gülenists have sought refuge.

When Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power after the 2002 legislative election, the Gülenists were at first his allies; Gülenists in the police and judicial system used fabricated evidence, arbitrary arrests and trials reminiscent of Stalin’s methods to reduce the influence of the elitist, secular Kemalist establishment, and remove the army from politics. Following a major split, Yeşil played a key role in 2010-15 in clashes between Gülenists and Erdoğan supporters within the state apparatus, which began in private but soon became public. By 2013 the Gülenist movement had openly turned into the AKP’s main enemy (2).

Yeşil left Turkey a year before the 2016 failed coup, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency, eradication of Gülenist networks within the administration, closure of many organisations, forfeiture of media companies, and tougher supervision of schools, universities and businesses thought to have Gülenist ties (3). Government sources this spring said that there had been 77,000 arrests (including 17,000 women and 750 children) of Turks accused of belonging to FETÖ; 240,000 others were facing charges; 30,400 had been found guilty; and 150,000 civil servants had been suspended or dismissed.

Political asylum

Many Gülenists accused of crimes in Turkey, whether ‘big brothers’ or supporters, have sought political asylum in the EU: 55,000 between 2016 and early 2019, according to Yeşil. Along with the US, the EU now seems to be the network’s nerve centre. There has been an active Gülenist presence in Europe since the 1980s, funded by donations from EU-based Turkish entrepreneurs sympathetic to Gülen’s worldview, but it was only after the AKP victory in 2002 that the movement took off.

We said we were in a civic process, but were obsessed with the state; that we were apolitical, but supported a political party. The priority is setting our own house in orderGülen supporter

An insider who requested anonymity told me, ‘In Europe and elsewhere the Gülenist game plan always followed the same model. An imam would be appointed to direct the movement in a country, and a group would be entrusted with inter-religious or civil society dialogue, another with accommodation, another with schools, and another with business. Major regions would have their own imam, too. In France, for example, there was an imam for Lyon, one for Seine-Saint-Denis [northeast of Paris] and so on.’

This strategy worked, and gave practising Turkish Muslims in Europe a way of reconciling their faith, their Turkish origins and their citizenship in western countries not always welcoming to Muslims. ‘Gülen’s message gave us a bridge between our faith and the modern world,’ one follower in London told me. ‘He offered an alternative approach to political Islam, which he rejected in favour of a civic Islam, which entailed social responsibility, integration and dialogue with others.’

Gülenists have established around 50 schools in Germany (where the movement is best represented), Belgium, the Netherlands and France, hundreds of evening classes, and cultural, professional and women’s organisations, as well as a platform for inter-religious dialogue in each country, a trademark of the movement. They also give out student bursaries after assessing the applicant’s morality, finances and family habits.

European presence

The movement’s newspaper, Zaman, which ceased publication soon after the failed coup, had a dozen editions outside Turkey (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Romania, the UK, Switzerland) and a combined circulation approaching 50,000. The movement also ran a major PR campaign targeting intellectual, religious and political circles, while its business association, Tuskon (Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists), funded conferences in partnership with Brussels-based thinktanks. In Belgium, the University of Louvain acquired a Fethullah Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies. In France, the network organised an annual dinner in the parliament complex. Politicians showed little interest in the nature of the Franco-Turkish organisation behind it, though the representative for the department of religious affairs at the interior ministry knew all about it, especially as the Gülenists were keen to be on good terms with the secret services.

In the European Parliament, the Greens proved most receptive to the Gülenists. A senior EU civil servant familiar with Turkish politics said he felt the Greens had ‘supported a series of initiatives that bear the clear mark of the Gülenists’, including a photography exhibition at the parliament building in 2012 to mark Zaman’s 25th anniversary: ‘Making Zaman a symbol of press freedom was a lot of nonsense. When I investigated, I discovered it was [Daniel] Cohn-Bendit who sponsored it,’ along with the paper’s editor, Ekrem Dumanlı, whose extradition from the US is currently sought by Ankara.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also welcomed several legal experts from Ankara. A senior Turkish civil servant said, ‘They were young prosecutors. We Turks knew they were Gülenists; people spoke openly about it in the Council of Europe. They were all recalled to Turkey after 2013, when war broke out between Erdoğan and Gülen.’

Several Gülenist figures have been abducted by Turkey’s special commandos in Asia, Africa and on the periphery of Europe in Kosovo and Moldova (4). Even within the EU, prominent figures are threatened: photos of their apartment buildings and cars have been published in the pro-government Turkish press, sending the message that they cannot hide. Their long experience of EU institutions convinced many Gülen supporters that they would be safer in the EU than elsewhere, although the ECHR’s rejection of thousands of appeals for leave to stay after the failed coup was a profound disappointment.

For most exiled Gülenists, Greece is the first staging post. Those who travel onwards into Europe must pay the movement €1,000 to help those who come after them. Emre (not his real name), who now lives in Greece, was a prosecutor at the Supreme Court in Ankara when the Gülenists were at the peak of their power within the state apparatus. He never imagined he would pay €10,000 to people smugglers who would abandon him, along with two Syrian families, in a leaking dinghy: ‘The Aegean was very rough. The water was pouring in and filling the boat. It was dark and a huge ship was bearing down on us. I said to the Syrians, “We should pray,” and at the same time I was imagining the headlines in the Turkish press: “Judge punished for fleeing democracy”.’

Aggressive PR campaign

Despite being fiercely criticised in Turkey, financially weakened, and threatened, the movement has not abandoned its primary political objective of bringing down Erdoğan. Its tactic is not to create a political party, but to fight an aggressive PR campaign to destabilise the government. Journalist Ragıp Duran, also in exile in Greece, said, ‘They are in opposition to Erdoğan … but they’re still very statist, still very anti-democratic on the Kurdish question. The only positive aspect is that they are no longer such an enemy of the left.’

In Sweden, where media control is especially liberal, a group of pro-Gülen journalists led by Abdullah Bozkurt are highly active on social media, especially Twitter. They continue to target Erdoğan, criticising the persecution of their supporters and publishing government documents to embarrass the authorities. Turkish-Swedish journalist Halil Karaveli said, ‘The Gülenists have shown they’re the antithesis of democratic, with their attempted coup and, before that, their machinations to take control of the Turkish state, and their very likely involvement in the murder of the journalist Hrant Dink. They’re as responsible for Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism as Erdoğan.’

Gülen’s message gave us a bridge between our faith and the modern world. He offered an alternative approach to political Islam, which he rejected in favour of a civic Islam, which entailed social responsibility, integration and dialogue with othersGülen supporter

In Stockholm, journalist Ahmet Dönmez is investigating the Gülenists’ role in the failed coup. Like many other committed supporters, he suspects they were duped, even if this is not always admitted to outsiders. Around Europe, internal meetings have brought together the old guard, such as Yeşil, and the new generation. According to two participants, a senior figure caused outrage by suggesting that they should do in Europe what they had done in Turkey: infiltrate state institutions. Yeşil downplayed this: ‘In Europe, the Gülen movement conducts its activities transparently and has never had problems. It will take a bit of time to integrate Hizmet members who have arrived in Europe in recent years after paying a heavy price in Turkey.’

All agree that Europe is where the Gülenist networks have the best chance of re-establishing themselves. Their associations are now officially registered and the time has come for self-criticism and reconstruction. ‘We said we were in a civic process, but were obsessed with the state. We said we were apolitical, but supported a political party. The priority is setting our own house in order,’ a member said. Another claimed that traditionalists currently have the upper hand and that internal debates have got nowhere. He predicted that ‘while Fethullah Gülen’s still alive, nothing will happen. When he’s gone, the movement will implode.’