Influential Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, a key foe of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, died in the U.S. after a long illness at the age of 83, according to multiple media reports.
Erdoğan accused Gülen, a one-time ally of the Turkish president, of instigating a failed 2016 coup, which led to a broad crackdown on civil rights and a purge of the regime’s opponents and critics. Gülen denied he was involved in the attempt to overthrow Erdoğan.
Gülen had been living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999. Erdoğan had repeatedly called on Washington to extradite the cleric to Turkey, accusing the United States of harboring a terrorist.
Gülen’s Hizmet movement runs schools and charities in Turkey and around the world, and he has worked since the 1960s to make Turkey more Muslim by instilling Islamic values through education and charity rather than politics.
Before Erdoğan became president, the two were friends, as the politician shared Gülen’s efforts. However, the Muslim preacher’s considerable influence became a problem when the Turkish judiciary launched several investigations into alleged corruption among senior members of Erdoğan’s AK Party in 2015.
This provoked Erdoğan’s ire: He accused the cleric of interfering with the judiciary and due process in Turkey, as Gülen supporters and sympathizers were in high places in law enforcement, and among the prosecutors and judges conducting the investigations.
When a group in the Turkish army tried to seize power from the president in 2016, Erdoğan saw an opportunity to crack down on Gülen.
Shortly after the government said it had regained control of the country from the “coup plotters,” Erdoğan lashed out at Gülen and his alleged supporters, calling them terrorists who tried to overthrow Turkey’s elected leadership and a “virus” that must be eradicated from society and “purged” from the army.
In the aftermath of the failed coup, tens of thousands were arrested, more than 100,000 people lost their jobs and more than 20,000 members of the Turkish military were expelled. Gülen denied that he was the mastermind behind the attempted takeover, claiming the coup was orchestrated by Erdoğan and the government as a prelude to a massive crackdown on dissent.
This story is being updated.
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