Gulen Charter Schools: Oda TV fabricates news stories for opposition leader

CHP Leader and Nedim Sener

[ Gulen charter schools forum editor: News agencies released an interesting story about the recent Oda TV case. This shows how Oda TV operates and produces news pieces. Oda TV is also identified as one of the organizations behind the anti-charter groups in the US who attack so-called Gulen charter schools operated by Turkish immigrants. ]

Evidence contained in an indictment in the case against Oda TV suggests that Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıcdaroglu ordered jailed Ergenekon suspect and journalist Nedim Sener to fabricate stories for him to use, Turkish media reported on Tuesday.

In the records of phone conversations included in the Oda TV case, Sener talks to Kılıcdaroglu and CHP Deputy Chairman Gursel Tekin. He calls the CHP leader, who was the CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman at the time, "üstad" (master) and then-CHP İstanbul provincial chief Tekin "şef" (chief).

Sener was imprisoned six months ago as part of the ongoing odatv trial, a news website whose operators were accused of aiding and abetting the terrorist Ergenekon organization.

The conversations took place in July and August 2009, nearly four months after Kılıcdaroglu lost the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality mayoral elections. The recorded calls reveal that Kılıcdaroglu encourages Sener to write negative news stories about the municipality's İstanbul Transportation Authority (İETT), asking him to report on an incident in the Eyüp district. Explaining that a couple was warned for sitting next to each other at an Eyup restaurant, Kılıcdaroglu asks Sener to send a male and a female reporter to a restaurant in Eyüp in order to see if they provoke a reaction by sitting next to each other at the same restaurant. Upon hearing Kılıcdaroglu's request, Şener asks him if he has the names of the couple that was treated badly in the restaurant. Kılıcdaroglu responds in the affirmative, and the conversation ends after Sener says he will "deal with it."

He also orders Sener to interview IETT General Manager Mehmet Ozturk, who was removed from office for being involved in irregularities in the purchase of IETT buses in 2009. Kılıcdaroglu asks Sener to question Ozturk as to why he opposed to the launch of Metrobuses, and the journalist acknowledges his request, saying: "I will see him in private. All right, üstad."

In another phone conversation Kılıcdaroglu asks Sener if his odatv can fabricate a news story about then-Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim, putting him in a difficult position.

Tekin also requests Sener to manufacture a story about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the records.

Kılıcdaroglu: The conversations are normal

In response to the news report regarding his orders to Sener, the CHP leader said the conversations between him and the journalist were "normal." Speaking to reporters at Ankara Esenboga Airport on Tuesday, he said the conversations represent a dialogue between a deputy who struggles against corruption and a journalist who pursues stories of corruption. "It is actually the duty of a journalist," he said. In response to a reporter's question over Kılıcdaroglu's request to send a male and a female reporter to see the reaction of the people in Eyup, he said people must focus on what the incident was about, not on the conversation.

Meanwhile, a letter received by the Istanbul Police Department on May 6, 2009 that was allegedly sent by a patriotic military officer was released last week. It also contained information about Şener. The letter claimed that Ergenekon was planning to carry out an assassination of a high-profile figure, whose name was not mentioned, such as Hrant Dink, a murdered Armenian-Turkish journalist and editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian Agos. Following the assassination members of Ergenekon who held key positions in the government and the police department would then dismiss every official supporting the trial against Ergenekon. Sener's responsibility, according the letter, was to organize attacks against these officials in the media.

Source: Cihan News Agency

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.

Gulen Charter Schools: More from Islamophobia Report

Center for American Progress summaries how ultra-nationalists are organized and funded. This draws a clear picture of actions of bloggers who attack so-called Gulen charter schools. 

Fast facts on the Islamophobia network 

This in-depth investigation conducted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund reveals not a vast right-wing conspiracy behind the rise of Islamophobia in our nation but rather a small, tightly networked group of misinformation experts guiding an effort that reaches millions of Americans through effective advocates, media partners, and grassroots organizing. This spreading of hate and misinformation primarily starts with five key people and their organizations, which are sustained by funding from a clutch of key foundations. 

The funding 

• More than $40 million flowed from seven foundations over 10 years.
• The foundations funding the misinformation experts:
Donors Capital Fund; Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation;
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; Newton and Rochelle Becker
Foundation and Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust;
Russell Berrie Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund and William
Rosenwald Family Fund; Fairbrook Foundation. 

The misinformation experts 

• Five experts generate the false facts and materials used by political leaders, grassroots groups, and the media:
• Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy
• David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence
• Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum
• Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America
• Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism
These experts travel the country and work with or testify before state legislatures calling for a ban on the nonexisting threat of Sharia law in America and proclaiming that the vast majority of mosques in our country harbor Islamist terrorists or sympathizers.
David Yerushalmi’s “model legislation” banning Sharia law has been cut and pasted into bills in South Carolina, Texas, and Alaska. His video on how to draft an anti-Sharia bill and his online tools have been picked up nationwide. 

The reach 

• The movement is moving nationwide in more than 23 states—made possible by a combination of new, single-minded Islamophobia groups, exemplified by Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! For America, Pam Geller’s Stop Islamization of America, David Horowitz’s Freedom Center, and existing groups such as the American Family Association and the Eagle Forum.
• Misinformation experts are broadcast around the country and the world, with their work cited many times by (among others) confessed Norway terrorist Anders Breivik.
• U.S. politicians such as Reps. Peter King (R-NY), Allen West (R-FL), and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) repeat these anti-Muslim attacks give credence to incorrect facts. 

The impact 

• This small network of people is driving the national and global debates that have real consequences on the public dialogue and on American Muslims.
• In September 2010, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 49 percent of Americans held an unfavorable view of Islam, a significant increase from 39 percent in October of 2002. 

Why it matters 

• These attacks go right to the heart of two critically important national issues: the fabric and strength of our democracy and our national security. Our Constitution upholds freedom of religion for all Americans.  Contending that some religions are not part of the promise of American freedoms established by our founders directly challenges who we are as a nation.
• One of Al Qaeda’s greatest recruitment and propaganda tool is the assertion that the West is at war with Islam and Muslims—an argument that is strengthened every day by those who suggest all Muslims are terrorists and all those practicing Islam are jeopardizing U.S. security.

Source: Fear, Inc.

Financial Sources of Anti-Charter Groups Named

Supporters of Islamophobia in US donated about $43 million during the last decade a report says. 


"Sometimes the money flowing from these foundations and their donors is clearly designed to promote Islamophobia, but more often the support provided is for general purpose use, which the think tanks and grassroots organizations then put to use on their primary purpose - spreading their messages of hate and fear as far and wide as they can," according to the report from the Washington-based the Centre for American Progress (CAP).

The report also points out the cooperation between hate groups to organize attacks against so-called Gulen charter schools: "At its 2011 Eagle Forum conference in St. Louis, Missouri, for example, Gabriel, Gaffney, and others in the network revealed a new supposed threat: Muslim Gulen schools, which they claim would educate children through the lens of Islam and teach them to “hate Americans.” Worse, the speakers alleged that President Obama’s support for charter school reforms was a back-door strategy for using taxpayer money to fund the schools."


For more information visit the Center for American Progress web site.

Not Mr Gulen teaching radical Islam but charter schools students making experiment

Those angry blog users would probably say that this is something that Fethullah Gulen thought to the charter school students, when they see the below video. They are also the same folks who invented such weird phrase of Gulen charter schools out of nowhere. This is a production of their ill imagination. It is not only Gulen charter schools phrase, but also juxtaposition of Fethullah Gulen and radical Islam into the same text. How funny it is. Let us remain silent here and bear witness to the power of science.

Gee it is not Mr Gulen teaching radical Islam on the video, but the brilliant students of Horizon charter schools experiencing the power of science. Congrats guys.