Le Monde: Ankara offered Senegalese government $7.5 million to transfer Yavuz Selim educational group to Maarif


Date posted: December 12, 2017

Parents of Senegalese children attending schools run by followers of U.S.-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen – the man blamed for last year’s coup attempt in Turkey – are worried by reports these schools could be handed over to Turkish government control, news website Quartz said.

“I don’t even know who Gülen or (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan are,” mother Oury Mbaye told the website following reports her child’s school could be handed over to the Turkish government-controlled Maarif Foundation.

“If they are imposing managers on me that have no experience in education, I will transfer my children to a French school. I did not choose Maarif, and they won’t impose anything on me.”

Erdoğan’s Islamist government used to see the Gülen religious movement’s overseas educational activities as a way to project Turkish soft power. But the group fell out dramatically with the government in 2013, when prosecutors said to be linked to the movement began investigating ministers on corruption charges.

The Turkish government now considers the group a terrorist organisation and accuses it of masterminding the failed 2016 coup attempt.

Le Monde newspaper said Ankara had offered the Senegalese government $7.5 million to transfer the Yavuz Selim educational group to Maarif.

But Education Minister Serigne Mbaye Thiam denied the report, saying that Senegal had only licensed Maarif to be able to set up its own schools, Quartz said.

Source: Ahvalnews , December 11, 2017

Tags: | | | | |


Related News

Veteran who lost legs in PKK attack removed from civil service over Gulen links

A Kırıkkale man who lost his both legs in a PKK attack while doing military service in the eastern province of Bingöl, has been sacked from a state institution after authorities found out that private colleges linked to Gülen Movement granted scholarship to his children.

Erdoğan…a factionist PM?

Now that the prime minister is battling a corruption scandal for which he is blaming the Hizmet movement, his new victims are Fethullah Gülen’s followers, who he calls “traitors.”

Tension at home hits Turkey’s brand overseas

ESİDEF President Mustafa Özkara said: “Top government officials, who during the Turkish Olympiads only six months ago called the Hizmet movement the ‘peace movement of the century,’ now define the same movement as a ‘parallel structure,’ a ‘gang,’ a ‘criminal organization’ and even Hashashins.

Closing down prep schools and calling it ‘transformation’

BÜŞRA ERDAL, İSTANBUL Describing the government’s plan to close down the prep schools as a “transformation” is nothing more than saying, “I’m not going to say ‘close down prep schools,’ but I’m going to close them down.” The draft law in question will affect millions of students and their parents, but the debate on prep […]

Turkey, The great purge – Four lives upturned by Erdogan’s ‘cleansing.’ Episode 2 – Mehmet

Following the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, Erdogan promised to “cleanse” Turkey of a “virus” that has plagued its state institutions. That cleansing has been primarily directed at two organisations: the PKK and the Gulen movement. But the crackdown on both organisations began long before the July coup attempt.

Turkish humanitarian NGO has cured 30,000 cataract sufferers

Kimse Yok Mu, a Turkish NGO delivering humanitarian aid around the world, has so far cured 30,180 people suffering from cataracts in Sudan, Chad, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo and Niger as of September 2014. Kimse Yok Mu’s cataract campaign seeks to eventually cure hundreds of thousands in the area.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

Gülen’s lawyer asks MİT whether it wiretapped client’s phone

Fethullah Gülen’s message to the International symposium “Ijtihad and Qiyas: The richness of Islam”

Turkish deputy PM says Fethullah Gülen is supra-political, conscience of 75 million people in Turkey

Has Erdoğan convinced EU of the existence of a ‘parallel state’?

Georgetown University in Qatar professor authors book on interfaith dialogue, Hizmet Movement

‘Let my husband go to another country, just not Turkey’

Governor’s office leads raid against Gülen inspired school based on annulled law

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News