Terrorism and Criminal Organisation Accusations
The Claim That an Unlicensed Dormitory Was Being Run
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
This claim belongs to the process opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. The day after the operation, a newspaper report dated 31 January 2018 wrote that a five-storey unlicensed dormitory belonging to the foundation had been uncovered opposite the foundation's service building. The same claim later entered the indictment in the case whose hearings began on 22 January 2019.
The places that were sealed were not dormitories of the foundation. In Adana, the homes in which students who came and went at the foundation were themselves living were classed as unlicensed dormitories and closed down; the home of one citizen was also sealed on the grounds that it was a representative office of the foundation.
That this was not so was established in writing by two separate authorities:
- Reports of the Directorate of National Education — it was determined that the foundation had no unregistered dormitory.
- Court rulings — it was established that these places did not belong to the foundation and were private dwellings, and the lifting of the seals was ordered.
The rulings were carried out and the homes were reopened. The power to decide whether a place counts as a dormitory lies with the national education authorities; in this file that power was exercised, and its outcome was put into the file in writing.
Despite this, the claim remained in the indictment unchanged. Both the report and the court rulings were inside the case file, and they were not taken into account. What is here is not a claim that could not be refuted, but a claim that is repeated even though it has been refuted.
What did the news report say?
On the morning of 30 January 2018, simultaneous operations were carried out against Alparslan Kuytul's home and the Furkan Foundation's centre in Adana. The report published the next day wrote that, alongside the money said to have been seized in the searches, a five-storey unlicensed dormitory belonging to the foundation had been uncovered opposite the foundation's service building, and that a connection to this dormitory had been established from the foundation building by a secret passage and a fibre line.
What were the places that were sealed?
After the report, a series of homes in Adana were sealed. Students who came and went at the foundation were living in these homes, and the homes were the students' own dwellings. In addition, the home of one citizen was closed down as a representative office of the foundation.
The difference between the two is not a technical detail. A dormitory is a business that provides accommodation, is subject to a licence and open to inspection. A dwelling, on the other hand, is the house in which people live. Students living together does not turn a house into a dormitory; the same picture is found in every university city in Turkey.
Who decided?
This distinction was not left to guesswork; two separate authorities decided.
That the foundation had no unregistered dormitory was established by the reports of the Directorate of National Education. Upon the objections lodged against the sealing decisions, the court too ruled that these places did not belong to the foundation, that they were private dwellings, and ordered that they be opened. The seals were lifted and the homes were reopened.
The claim, in other words, was rejected within the same process by the administration and the court of the very city in which it was put forward.
This ruling brings down the rest of the claim as well. The account of the secret passage and the fibre line in the news report rested on the building across the way being an unlicensed dormitory. Once that place turns out to be a home, nothing is left to tell: there is neither news value nor an element of crime in the internet being connected to a student house.
The second half of the claim: income
In the case file the claim did not stop at a building being classed as an unlicensed dormitory; it was also asserted that a substantial income was obtained by means of these dormitories. For this addition to stand up, at least two things would have been needed:
- A student or parent saying that they had paid money for accommodation.
- A movement in an account into which that money went, and whose source could not be explained.
Neither is in the file. No one came forward saying that they had made a payment, and in the MASAK report no increase whose source could not be explained was found in the accounts of those on trial either.
The document was inside the file
The real matter of this page is here. The National Education reports and the court rulings on the lifting of the seals had been placed in the case file. They were not taken into account while the indictment was being prepared, nor were they discussed in the later hearings. Throughout the months in which the detention was extended, this report and these rulings were also on the list of evidence that waited in the file and was not examined.
If the document that refutes a claim is inside the file and the claim is repeated nonetheless, what is there is not a lack of information but a choice.
The dates on this page belong to the process opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. The other claims in the same sentence of the news report and in the same file were dealt with under separate headings: the claim of a vault and secret passages, the fraud claim.