Oda TV of Turkey is behind anti-charter groups in US

Today, a high court in Istanbul, Turkey, has accepted an indictment of 14 suspects, including some journalists who are accused of being members of Ergenekon, a clandestine criminal network accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

Journalists like Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik who work at Oda TV are among those who have been arrested recently for being members of the terrorist group, not because they are journalists or writers as some American bloggers claim. The Prosecutor accuses Oda TV for being a news front for terrorists.

A little digging on the Internet reveals that Oda TV is a big supporter of US bloggers who attack charter schools, so-called Gulen charter schools in particular, operated by Turkish immigrants in US.

Oda TV blaim the Gulen movement for Sener’s and Sik’s arrests and cooperate with ultra-nationalists in the smear campaign against charter schools in the US.

Gulen met with Pope John Paul II
in late 1990s

The Prosecutor charged Sener and Sik with supporting a terrorist network accused of plotting a coup, asking 15 years in prison. The Prosecutor charged the network for aiming to create chaos in Turkey, hatred against Americans and Christians (examples would be organized attacks against Christians in Malatya, the murder of a Christian priest in Trabzon, assasinations of Greek and Armenian community leaders, and Hrant Dink’s murder, a prominent Armenian writer). Ergenekon is also identified as the group behind the assassination attempt at Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Oda TV feeds false information to ultra-nationalists in US through a Twitter account called CASILIPS. Interestingly, among the followers of the account is Dani Rodrik, a Harvard professor and the son-in-law of Cetin Dogan, a retired general arrested and charged with planning a military coup against the current government in Turkey.

It is clear that the Ergenekon terror organization is one of the major groups behind the smear campaigns against so-called Gulen charter schools and it is very unfortunate to see some Americans act along with this terror organization knowingly or unaware.