More than 350 students in Denmark have pulled out of Gulen-linked schools following the July 15 defeated coup in Turkey, blamed on the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), according to local media reports.
Turkey’s government says the July 15 defeated coup, which left 240 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured, was organised by terrorists from FETO which is led by Fetullah Gulen, who is living in self-imposed exile in the US.
A total of 366 former students at FETO-linked schools have not registered for the new semester in the Scandanavian country.
FETO has been running seven primary schools, four high schools and three boarding schools in Denmark.
Reports said some of the FETO-linked schools have already lost an estimated 40 percent of their students.
Hasan Huseyin Mor, principal at a local school linked to Gulen, said he could understand the parents’ fears and concerns.
“Their children could be labeled terrorists. We’re not involved in politics in school, but we can understand the parents’ fears.”
Other Countries
In Romania, dozens of students also reportedly dropped out of FETO-linked schools.
Nazmi Dogan Head of IMM TURK a Turkish business association in Romania said he too removed his child from a FETO-linked school.
“We removed our daughter from the traitors’ school, which misleads [people] with an artificial success [story].”
Authorities in Pakistan, Somalia, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan have also initiated actions against FETO-linked schools operating in their countries.
Responding to the calls for action against such schools by Turkish leadership, Pakistan has removed Turkish principals and directors of FETO-linked schools present in the country.
A Pakistani newspaper quoted an unnamed official from the PakTurk International Education Foundation, which runs the schools, saying that a new local board of directors would be appointed and the schools would be re-registered as a local organisation rather then an international NGO.
Tajikistan’s president also directed authorities to take over Gulen’s schools operating in the country.
Azerbaijan said it would deport 50 Gulen-linked Turkish academics employed at a university.
Gulen is accused of leading a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as the parallel state.
Turkey’s government has made pleas for other countries to clamp down on all Gulen-linked NGO’s and institutions.
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