Herkul.org is a scholarly website managed by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s students. Along with the students’ essays on various topics, it regularly broadcasts speeches of Gulen. Access to the website is now blocked in Turkey by state-controlled Internet watchdog, the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB). “Having views other than the official ideology of the state is considered a crime in anti-democratic societies”, Albayrak, Fethullah Gulen’s lawyer stated.
Since the AKP’s corruption scandal, a number of business groups, media outlets, aid organizations, civil society organizations, universities, private schools and prep schools that were established by people sympathetic to the Gülen movement have been targeted by government-orchestrated police raids and investigations.