Gülen criticizes remarks insulting members of Hizmet movement

“Those who call a Muslim a [member of a] gang, a network, a bandit and who sees them as gorillas and monkeys who are living in caverns... these are nothing but a reflection of shabby thoughts on words, thoughts, expressions and no curve could be made straight with these [words],” Gülen said.

Gülen didn't directly mention Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's name, but it was obvious that he was responding to the prime minister's remarks on Friday, when he said the government will “come down to your caverns and tear you to shreds.”

Erdoğan continues torepeat charges that a corruption probe that involves sons of ministers, businesspeople and the chief of the state bank is a “dirty operation” against his government and describes it as a foreign plot. He also accuses the Hizmet movement of being behind this "plot" against his government. As part of his campaign, Erdoğan purged more than a hundred police officials, removed the head of the national wiretapping body, issued a decree that forces police chiefs to inform their superiors before acting on prosecutors' orders and appointed two prosecutors to supervise the case -- moves observers described as a blunt intervention in the graft investigation.

For the first time in his life on Friday, Gülen cursed those who are behind the purge of police officials, saying that he can no longer tolerate what he called all the “assymetrical assaults.”

Gülen criticized Erdoğan's abusive description of the Hizmet movement in his Sunday speech, published on herkul.org, a website that usually publishes his speeches, and said viewing houses of those who are living in poor conditions as “caverns” means Erdoğan doesn't know what a cavern is. Gülen said all these are expressions of “worthlessness.”

Gülen said when “one says cavern, it is obvious that he is referring to monkeys, gorillas, bears, hyenas, snakes, centipedes...” and urged members of the Hizmet movement not to retaliate against this kind of “worthlessness” in the same way.

Speaking about the allegations that police officials and prosecutors who are behind the corruption raid are linked to the Hizmet movement, Gülen recalled a case that was filed against his speeches in 1999. Gülen said New Jersey's chief prosecutor reviewed the indictment against him and sent a report to judges in Turkey. He said that report, which indicated that the allegations in the indictment were ludicrous, was key in his acquittal of the charges. He said it was obvious that the American prosecutor and the judges in Turkey were only standing on the side of justice and that they had no links to him.

Gülen described this kind of behavior as a “right act” and criticized “others,” referring to the government, for calling the corruption investigation a “conspiracy.” “They are calling this right act a conspiracy; they are calling the unveiling of treason, infamy a plot; there are attempts to defend treason and infamy,” Gülen added.  

Gülen stated that the Hizmet movement doesn't have any kind of duty to unveil someone's “treason and infamy,” but that they're not in a position to intervene if someone else unveils that “treason.” “This is something beyond us,” he stressed.