https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/turkey-seeks-extradition-of-2-gulen-school-employees-from-kyrgyzstan/?fbclid=IwAR3GJOXILtO6c5KFKGLpS-TRAFU_Fl1P7_tEhdqKIZ29bbbObFQ-VujeK8s
Previously posted on Kyrgyz here
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Previously posted on Kyrgyz here
Click Here
A court in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, reportedly overturned a decision made by the Prosector General’s Office to extradite two people — presumably Turkish citizens — back to Turkey on account of their connection to Fethullah Gulen’s movement.
According to RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service, locally known as Azattyk, two employees of the Sapat school network, Senan Yilmaz and Sanjar Abdulhakim, have been in pre-trial detention at a State Committee for National Security (GKNB) facility. As reported by 24.kg, they are “accused of complicity in an illegal armed group and membership in an armed terrorist organization in Turkey.”
Since 2016, the Turkish government has hounded those associated, however distantly, with Gulen. Ankara has accused U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of plotting the apparent coup attempted on July 15, 2016. Once upon a time Gulen was a stalwart ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but those days are long past.
As I wrote in 2018, “Gulen founded a movement which has, among other things, built and staffed hundreds of schools around the world. Once a key aspect of Turkish soft power, these schools have become lightning rods in Turkey’s various contemporary bilateral relationships.”
The network of Turkish schools in Kyrgyzstan, known previously as Sebat lyceums, were renamed and reregistered in 2017 but not closed as they are considered some of the best schools in the country. Top officials send their children to the prestigious schools. The Kyrgyz Ministry of Education in 2018 rebuffed comments from the Turkish ambassador that a Turkish foundation was about to take the network over, saying the schools were under Kyrgyz government control.
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