The agents of Moldovan and Turkish intelligence services on Thursday detained six Turkish nationals working for a private chain of high schools in Moldova as part of the Turkish government’s global witch hunt against the alleged members of the Gülen movement.
Moldovan Information and Security Service (SIS) and the agents of Turkey’s notorious National Intelligence Organisation on Thursday detained six Turkish nationals who were working Orizont Moldovan-Turkish Schools and had taken them into an unknown direction.
According to a report by Balkan Insight, one of the detainees is only 14 years old, but he was shortly released. “They were taken this morning, but my son and his teacher were released. But another teacher was taken after they broke down his door,” the father of the teen said. He added that he feared that the others would be sent to Turkey on the first flight from Chisinau.
The Turkish teachers were apprehended either on their ways to school or from their houses, as in a case, the SIS agents used force to break into the premises of the detainee. Hasan Karacaoğlu, Hüseyin Bayraktar, Rıza Doğan, Feridun Tüfekçi, Yasin Öz, and Müjdat Çelebi were among the detained Turkish nationals. Tüfekçi was the principal of the Ceadir-Lunga branch of the schools, and Rıza Doğan was the principal of the Durlesti branch.
Apart from Hüseyin Bayraktar, all other five people applied for an asylum in the country in April 2018 and were expecting a response from the Moldovan authorities this month.
In March 2018, the general director of the schools, Turgay Şen, was detained by the Moldovan security forces over the Turkish government’s extradition demands; however, he was released without charges.
Less than two weeks before Şen’s arrest, Moldovan President Igor Dodon announced that he had met Turkish President Erdoğan at İstanbul’s International Atatürk Airport on March 18, and had talked about Turkey repairing the Presidency building in Chisinau, which was damaged in the street riots on April 7, 2009, which toppled the then Communist-led government.
Erdoğan was expected in Moldova on August 27 on the National Day of Moldova to open the new Presidential Palace, but the ceremony has been postponed to October. Dodon said on Wednesday on a TV political show that he expected the Turkish President for the grand opening.
Previously Erdoğan has asked from Moldovan Parliament Speaker Andria Candu to close the Gülen-linked schools. There are five Horizont high schools in Moldova. The educational institution opened in 1993, they are multi-lingual, multi-ethnic schools with several championships in international science contests. The schools host 1,691 pupils and employ about 376 staff from Moldova, Turkey, and Albania.
The SIS stated that it had conducted the operation designed to prevent threats to national security in several localities. The actions were carried out by the SIS Antiterrorist Center. However, pro-government Turkish media claimed it was Turkey’s MİT carried out the detentions.
“The MİT, which earlier dealt a major blow to FETÖ’s Balkan branch [Kosovo] … is now conducting an operation in Moldova,” a Turkish media outlet reported. “FETÖ” is a derogatory term coined by ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to refer to the Gülen movement.
A statement by SIS suggested that the detainees were “suspected of ties with an Islamist group, a group about which there are indications that they are acting illegally in several countries,” and that they “have been declared undesirable by competent authorities and expelled from the territory of the Republic of Moldova.”
The relatives of the detainees were not informed about the whereabouts. According to local sources, students of the schools and their families arrived at an airport, where the detainees could be handed over to Turkish security forces in order to be brought back to Turkey, protesting the detention.
Another Turkish educationist in Mongolia, Veysel Akçay, was detained in late July this year over the Turkish government’s extradition request, but due to the interference of Mongolian authorities and international pressure, he was released.
In April, the European Union criticized Kosovo for deporting six Turkish teachers saying it raised questions about Kosovo’s respect for human rights. The deportations on March 29 were approved by Kosovo’s interior minister and intelligence chief, prompting their dismissal by Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who said the officials had acted without his permission.
In October 2016, Bulgaria returned to Turkey at least six people who were allegedly linked to Gülen movement. Border police found them in Ruse, on the border with Romania, where they had attempted to cross over. After all of them claimed asylum, they were told that they would be taken a refugee center – but the vehicle took them instead to the Turkish border.
Turkey has continued to pressure Bulgaria over the same issue, however. Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu recently reportedly asked his Bulgarian counterpart to check 14 organizations and schools where his government suspects the supporters of the Gülen movement work.
The Turkish government has launched both domestic and global crackdown against the Gülen movement with accusing it of orchestrating a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, although the movement strongly denied any involvement.
As a result of the global witch-hunt, more than 100 Gülen-linked Turkish national were brought back to Turkey through intelligence service operations and co-operation of other countries, including Kosovo, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Gabon, and Myanmar.
