From the website of the Turkish based Australian Inter-Cultural Society:
On Thursday, 31 August 2006 the Australian Catholic University organized a ceremony marking the establishment of a centre for inter-religious dialogue studies . The event also witnessed the official signing of an agreement between the AIS(Australian Inter-Cultural Society) and the University for the establishment of a Chair for Islamic Studies and Interfaith Dialogue, with the Faculty of Arts .
The Centre's objectives are stated as follows:
to
promote the further development of inter-religious harmony and dialogue in Australia and in the Pacific-Asia region.Educate future leaders in the humanities, business, health sciences, social sciences and theological sciences in the teachings of Islam, as expounded in Fethullah Gulen's writing and in the teachings of Said Nursi.
The Chair of Islamic Studies and Interfaith dialogue was named "Fethullah Gulen Chair".
( Source: http://www.intercultural.org.au/events_2007/gulen_chair/index.htm . See also inet.acu.edu.au/Annual_Report_06/common.html )
R. Krespin , director of MEMRI's Turkish Media Project has written:
(see http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA37507)
According to an investigative series by columnist Hikmet Cetinkaya in Cumhuriyet (June 22-July 4, 1999), in the 1970s, Fethullah Gulen was convicted for his Islamist activities in Turkey. During this decade, he organized and ran secret summer camps in the mountains of western Turkey where children as young as elementary school age were taught Islam, and taught to hate nonbelievers and to become jihad fighters. These camps were guarded by armed "brothers." Some were run in cooperation with the Suleymancilar sect.
In 1999, footage was aired on Turkish television of sermons delivered by Fethullah Gulen to a crowd of followers, in which he revealed his aspirations for an Islamist Turkey ruled by shari'a as well as the methods that should be used to attain that goal. In the sermons, he said ,amongst other things:
"You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete, and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey...."
By the time the above was aired, Gulen had already left the country for the U.S., supposedly for health reasons. A year later, in 2000, he was indicted in absentia for attempting to change Turkey's system of government and for "forming an illegal organization with the purpose of establishing an Islamist state." It was from there that he built his international Islamist community.
At a 2003 judicial hearing, it was decided to postpone Gulen's trial, subject to reprocessing if he was indicted again for a similar crime in the next five years. In May 2006, the AKP government modified the criminal code regarding acts of terror, and Gulen was acquitted.
(http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA37507)
The AKP Government’s intervention in Gulen's matter is not surprising .
Fethullah Gulen is thought to be one of the richest Turks in the world. He lives on a large estate in Pennsylvania, and it is from there that he runs his million-member community. The prevailing perception in political circles in Turkey is that Fethullah Gulen is the power behind many Islamist politicians, especially in the AKP.
(http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA37507)
This then brings us to another wealthy businessman that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended,and who appears to have financially supported at least one individual close to the AKP:
On July 20, 2006 a Turkish administrative court overturned a government order to seize the assets of Yassin Al Kadi, designated as an individual associated to Al Qaeda and the Taliban by the UN Security Council. The decision was apparently made on technical grounds.
The decision came days after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended al-Qadi as a "charitable person" and after the Turkish press revealed that Yassin Al Kadi had received funds from a close advisor to the Turkish Prime Minister.
This unprecedented Turkish ruling clearly contradicts the international obligations of the Turkish government
( see http://jcb.blogs.com/jcb_blog/2006/07/a_turkish_court.html and other postings by Jean Charles Brisard on this site)
Readers will recall that Yassin Al-Kadi also has associaites and businesses in Australia- see www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2006/08/yassin_alkadist.html
Chief among Al-Kadi business associates in Australia , Dr Rahim Ghouse, is known to have close contacts with the local Turkish community.As well, Anwar Ibrahim, whom Dr Ghouse represents in Australia is known to have close rapport with Erdogan and the AKP.( see http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2007/02/yassin_alkadia_.html)
The Australian Catholic University (ACU) and its Vice-Chancellor Peter Sheehan have refused to provide any details of how or who will be funding the Fethullah Gulen Chair.
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