A group of Turkish diplomats led by Turkish Consul General Şevki Seçkin Alpay together with dozens of Turkish soldiers and Afghan military police officers raided an Afghan-Turk school in Mazar-e Sharif, northern Afghanistan, on Tuesday.
Afghans have collected 1 million signatures to prevent the transfer of Turkish schools established by businessmen and operated by educators allegedly affiliated with the Gülen movement for decades in Afghanistan to Erdogan’s Maarif Foundation.
Ahmet, 27, agrees. He says that, when studying at a Gülen school, “for the first time we saw teachers caring for us. They were prepared to do more than to teach. They were making an extra effort for us, showing exemplary behaviour, such as rushing to help when a school boy got sick, finding medicine for him.
Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish preacher who has lived in voluntary exile in the US since 1999, on Tuesday criticized the deportation of six Turkish citizens from Kosovo to Turkey in an operation conducted by Turkish state intelligence, likening it to a hijacking.
Turgay Şen, the general manager of the Orizont High School in Moldovan capital Chisinau claimed asylum in the country in order to escape from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s long-arm that cracked down hard on Gulenists elsewhere.
The European Union on April 3 criticized Kosovo’s deportation of six Turks who were political foes of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying it “raised questions” about both Pristina’s and Ankara’s “respect” for human rights.
Gulistan Educational Institutions has declared that they will continue their activities despite their abducted teachers. 5 of their teachers were abducted by Turkish Intelligence Agency in cooperation with Kosovo’s intel agency, which shocked the global education community and protested in many countries including USA, Canada, and UK.