Closed Associations, a Trustee, and Reopened Student Houses
Fact
The period under discussion is this: the 30 January 2018 operation against the Furkan Foundation and the case files opened afterwards. The picture below is the situation Alparslan Kuytul described on the TV5 broadcast of 11 December 2019, six days after his release.
As of that day there were three separate headings:
- The associations. All branches of the Furkan associations had been closed by a decree with the force of law.
- The foundation. The case against the Furkan Foundation was continuing, and because a trustee had been appointed to the foundation, Kuytul and his friends could not enter their own buildings.
- The student houses. The foundation had no dormitory; the houses in which the students who came and went at the foundation were themselves living had been classed as dormitories and sealed.
The end of the third heading is clear. When the houses were treated as unlicensed dormitories and a fine was imposed on the foundation, the party that objected to the fine was not the foundation's administrators but the trustee appointed to the foundation from outside. The court examined the matter, the officials sent by the Ministry of National Education submitted a report to the court, and it was placed on record that these places were student houses. At the end of the process the houses were reopened and the fines that had been imposed were cancelled.
The foundation building, however, was still closed at that date. When he was asked what he would do from then on, his answer was short:
"If they open our foundation, we will continue our talks there. If they do not open it, the whole country is ours."
The same sealing, looked at from the side of the claim, is a separate heading: the "an unlicensed dormitory is being run" claim.
Which period, which date?
Everything on this page belongs to a single period: the 30 January 2018 operation against the Furkan Foundation, his arrest on 8 February 2018 and his release on 5 December 2019. The source of the account is the TV5 broadcast of 11 December 2019, which he joined six days after his release. The assessment of the situation below belongs to that day; it says nothing about the years that followed.
The associations: closed by decree
In that broadcast Kuytul says that all the branches of the Furkan associations were closed by the most recent decree with the force of law.
The distinction here matters for the reader: an association being closed by decree and an association being closed by a court ruling are not the same thing. In the first there is no judgment handed down at the end of a trial; there is an administrative act, and the association closes without having had the chance to argue the reason for its closure at a hearing.
The foundation: the case continues, a trustee at the door
The foundation's situation was different from that of the associations. The Furkan Foundation had not been closed, its case was continuing — but a trustee had been appointed to the foundation.
A trustee is a person who temporarily takes over the management of an institution. The result is this: the foundation stands in law, but its founder and its members cannot enter their own buildings. Kuytul's description is as plain as that. He has been released, and the place where he would hold his lessons is closed.
The student houses: sealed first
The third heading is the student houses. Kuytul says two things separately: the foundation had no dormitory, and the places that were sealed were the houses in which the students who came and went at the foundation were themselves living. These houses were classed as dormitories and sealed, they were treated as unlicensed dormitories, and a fine was imposed on the foundation.
It was the trustee who objected to the fine
The most striking detail of the process is here. The party that objected to the fine was not the foundation's administrators — they could not enter the building in any case. The objection was made by the trustee who had been appointed to the foundation from outside.
In other words, the person who said the fine was not warranted was not the foundation's defender but the appointed person who at that date bore the title of the foundation's official administrator.
What happened next?
The court took up the objection and examined the matter. The officials sent by the Ministry of National Education submitted a report to the court. The conclusion of the report was that these places were not dormitories but student houses, and this finding was entered into the case file.
This means the matter was settled by the competent authority: the power to decide whether a place counts as a dormitory lies with the Ministry of National Education. At the end of the process two things happened:
- the houses were reopened,
- the fines that had been imposed were cancelled.
Kuytul does not tell this outcome in the language of triumph; he states the order of events and moves on. That is also why the page stops here: the sealing made the news, the lifting of the seals did not. The two pieces of information need to stand side by side.
"If they do not open it, the whole country is ours"
The foundation building was still closed as of 11 December 2019. When he was asked what he intended to do from then on, his answer is short:
"If they open our foundation, we will continue our talks there. If they do not open it, the whole country is ours. All the streets are ours, all the parks, the gardens are ours."
His answer to the question of what he would speak about describes the subject of the activity: "We will teach Islam, we will teach tawhid."
What this page says and what it does not
Part of what is reported here rests on documents — the Ministry of National Education report, the court's record, the cancelled fines. Another part is Kuytul's own assessment of the situation. The dates were written out plainly so that the reader can tell the two apart.
The page deals only with the 2018–2019 period. Today there is a separate and ongoing judicial process; none of the information here relates to that process. The page that looks at the same sealing from the side of the claim: the "an unlicensed dormitory is being run" claim.