Terrorism and Criminal Organisation Accusations
The claim that the Furkan Foundation is a criminal organisation
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
In the file whose hearings began in Adana on 22 January 2019, the accusation directed at the directors of the Furkan Foundation was not terrorism but founding an organisation for the purpose of committing offences and fraud. The file is the second leg of the process opened by the operation of 30 January 2018.
The elements a structure must possess in order to be counted as a criminal organisation are clear. The picture in the file is this:
- No aim of gain. The great majority of those on trial work for the minimum wage, in someone else's employ.
- No system of sanctions. The foundation rests on a voluntary basis; how someone who does not keep to a rule is punished has not been shown.
- No secrecy. Almost all of the activities are open to the public: conferences, charity bazaars, rallies, press statements, lessons.
- Leaving is unrestricted. Those who fell into disagreement, or who grew tired and stepped aside, left without difficulty, and nothing happened to anyone.
- No victim. The foundation was active in dozens of provinces from 1994 to 2018; though months of waiting followed the operation, not a single person came forward with a complaint.
- No money trail. In the MASAK report in the file, no increase whose source could not be explained appears in the accounts of those on trial.
What is left is the work the foundation did over twenty-four years: scholarships, a study centre, aid campaigns, exegesis and sira lessons. What makes a structure a criminal organisation is not the name of the file opened about it, but the elements listed above.
This claim was voiced again on 7 September 2026 on the CNN Türk programme "Tarafsız Bölge". The collected answer to the imputations listed on the programme: Cübbeli Ahmet's claims about the Furkan Movement on CNN Türk — the Furkan Movement's full statement text.
Which file, which date?
The Furkan Education and Service Foundation was established in Adana on 22 November 1994. After the operation of 30 January 2018 a trustee was appointed to the foundation and its activities were halted. When it became clear that the terrorism charges would not hold, the file changed hands: the indictment whose hearings began on 22 January 2019 now carried the charges of founding a criminal organisation and fraud.
What counts as a criminal organisation?
A criminal organisation is a legal concept with a defined name, and it has elements. When you lay the file over these elements, not one of them holds.
Gain. A criminal organisation is set up in order to obtain income by committing offences at whatever cost. In this file most of those on trial work for the minimum wage. A person who lives by committing offences has no need to work twelve hours a day in someone else's employ.
Sanction. In an organisation, whoever does not keep to the rules is punished. The foundation rests on a voluntary basis; no one can be made to do anything by force. In the indictment there is not a single example of how someone who acts against the aim is punished.
Leaving. Leaving a criminal organisation is not possible. There are a great many people who left the Furkan Foundation out of disagreement or weariness, and not one of them paid a price. Some of them later spoke against the foundation; nothing happened to them either.
Secrecy. A criminal organisation carries out its business in secret. The foundation's activities, by contrast, are announced before they are held: conferences, charity bazaars, rallies, press statements, weekly lessons. Halls are rented, posters are printed, invitations are published.
Victim. For the offence of fraud to come about, someone who has been defrauded must be found. Months of waiting followed the operation; not a single person came forward to say that the foundation had defrauded them on such and such a date.
The question of the founding date
This is the simplest question the indictment does not answer. If the foundation was set up in 1994 for the purpose of committing offences, then all the founders and directors who have served from that day to this would have to be on trial in the same file. And if the aim changed later, the date on which this happened would have had to be written down. There is no such date in the indictment, and only some of the directors have been put on trial.
What do the audits say?
For twenty-four years the foundation was audited many times both by the Directorate General of Foundations and by the intelligence units. In none of these audits is there a finding that an offence was committed. In the report of the chief inspector of the Directorate General of Foundations it is written plainly that the foundation's management has no connection with any terrorist organisation. In the inspection report of the same institution it is also recorded that Kuytul did not hold a place in the foundation's management and could therefore not be held responsible for the work done — even so, he was tried while in pre-trial detention.
There are documents pointing the other way as well: in 2013–2014 the foundation was held up as a model foundation and received a plaque from the Police Directorate, and plaques were presented to it several times for its work by the headmen of the neighbourhoods of Adana with a high crime rate.
The indictment's own sentences
To understand the real subject of the file it is enough to read the indictment. On the eighteenth page it is listed that the foundation's greatest aim is to establish an Islamic civilisation, that the volunteers express this aim with the words we are returning to our civilisation, and that Qur'an, exegesis, sira and tawhid lessons are held at the foundation. Immediately afterwards it is recorded that in some of his speeches Kuytul criticised the government's political policies.
At the hearing of 10 May 2019 Kuytul summed up the standing side by side of these two sentences as follows:
"The indictment says 'he wants an Islamic Civilisation'. Immediately afterwards it says 'but he also criticises the government'. Yes, I do want an Islamic Civilisation, and I am honoured by it."
Would a criminal organisation do these things?
In the indictment the distribution of duties within the foundation has been counted as a hierarchical structure and made into evidence of an organisation. Yet a distribution of duties exists in every civil society organisation; it is indeed required. What is decisive is what those duties were given for: to award scholarships, to help secondary school and high school students with their studies, to deliver aid to families in need, to organise conferences and charity bazaars, to hold exegesis and hadith lessons.
The dates on this page belong to the process opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. The money part of the same file has been dealt with under a separate heading: the claim of a racket run with fake receipts.