Levent Kenez/Stockholm
A Turkish government-funded entity run by jihadists has expanded into a global network designed to export political Islam and systematically dismantle alternative Turkish educational networks abroad, according to official records. The Turkish Maarif Foundation, established in June 2016, operates as a state-backed apparatus combining formal non-profit status with embedded executive authority to enforce the geopolitical and ideological objectives of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A comprehensive investigative report released by Solidarity with Others, an international human rights organization based in Belgium, reveals that the foundation has served as a central instrument in a coordinated campaign of transnational repression.
The Turkish government attributed a coup attempt in July 2016 to the movement inspired by the late Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, a claim the movement denies. It says the coup was a false flag operation orchestrated by Erdogan and Turkish intelligence to purge people from the movement. Since then, Maarif has secured the closure, confiscation or forced transfer of at least 162 educational institutions affiliated with the Gülen movement across 29 countries. This global restructuring campaign has disrupted the livelihoods of approximately 7,800 school administrators, teachers and support staff worldwide.
Financial records obtained from government sources document an unprecedented escalation in state funding for Maarif. The foundation received an initial budgetary allocation of 90 million lira ($30 million) in 2016 from the Ministry of Education. By 2024, annual budget transfers authorized through presidential decisions published in the Official Gazette had surged to 5.7 billion lira ($175 million), climbing further to an authorized ceiling of 6.77 billion lira ($195 million) for 2025. In total, the Turkish state has channeled over 27.7 billion lira ($900 million) into the foundation over an eight-year period of time, representing a financial expansion of nearly 2,000 percent since its inception.
The institutional architecture of the foundation establishes complete state control over its operations, invalidating its public presentation as an independent charitable body. Under its founding law, the board of trustees consists of 12 members, with four appointed directly by the president of Turkey and three by the council of ministers, along with official representatives from the ministries of education, foreign affairs and finance. A landmark 2018 ruling by the Constitutional Court confirmed this hybrid status, rejecting opposition challenges by noting that the legislature legitimately endowed the foundation with unique public privileges and state budget asset allocations to execute external state functions.
Data compiled by Solidarity with Others indicates that out of the 162 targeted schools, the foundation succeeded in taking direct operational control of 131 institutions, primarily in developing nations or countries with significant strategic, financial or security dependence on Ankara. The Solidarity with Others report details how the Turkish government utilized targeted diplomatic pressure, promises of investment, security agreements and bilateral leverage to compel host nations into compliance, frequently bypassing domestic legal frameworks, property rights and judicial remedies.
In Sub-Saharan Africa the mechanisms of transfer relied heavily on rapid executive decrees and security-led interventions. In Mali the government overrode initial resistance following an August 2017 visit by a Turkish state delegation, issuing an emergency decree that revoked the licenses of 18 institutions operating under the Collège Horizon network. Malian security units forcibly entered school premises, seized assets and transferred control to the foundation, resulting in the immediate dismissal of 40 Turkish teachers and putting them and their families at risk of losing their legal status.
A parallel situation occurred in Niger, where four schools were transferred in January 2017 despite an initial domestic court ruling that characterized the license cancellation as a manifestly illegal administrative act. The Nigerien government refused to execute the judicial order due to prior political commitments made to Erdogan. Despite the fact that the regional court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) later ordered Niger to pay compensation to the original owners in 2020, the ruling remains unfulfilled.
The campaign extended deep into Central Asia and Latin America through alternative administrative and security maneuvers. In Afghanistan, where the Afghan-Turk Çag Educational NGO managed 11 prominent schools, the transfer process spanned two years of intense diplomatic pressure involving military presence and migration negotiations. Between 2018 and 2019 Afghan security forces carried out coordinated raids across multiple cities, arresting staff and deploying physical force against protesting parents and students to install foundation management. In Venezuela the transfer of two schools in Caracas in December 2018 coincided with the issuance of INTERPOL notices for the original administrators. Following high-level summits between Erdogan and former president Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelan authorities seized the properties and handed them over to the foundation, immediately preceding an expanded bilateral security pact that legalized joint intelligence-sharing operations.
Other jurisdictions witnessed property manipulation and extra-procedural deportations. In Zambia the government circumvented standard license revocations by deploying the state’s eminent domain powers, with the minister of lands and natural resources issuing a compulsory acquisition order for land leased by the Ve Horizon School network in late 2019. Police units subsequently escorted the Turkish staff off the campus without allowing them to retrieve their personal belongings. In Liberia an intelligence-led intervention in April 2022 resulted in the National Security Agency confiscating the passports of administrators for the Light International School System, culminating in the forced deportation of staff members under international protection to neighboring countries without any formal judicial process.
The Solidarity with Others legal analysis assesses these combined global actions under international criminal law, specifically referencing Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The report concludes there is a reasonable basis to determine that the cumulative actions of the Turkish state and cooperating host countries constitute the crime against humanity of persecution. This finding is based on the systematic, politically motivated deprivation of fundamental rights, including the arbitrary seizure of private property, the cancellation of professional teaching licenses, restrictions on movement and the targeted denial of access to justice for a specific civilian population based entirely on perceived political affiliation.
While the Turkish government continues to frame the foundation as a standard international education provider serving tens of thousands of students globally, its structural alignment with the presidency and its role in enforcing institutional substitution demonstrate a different reality. The foundation operates as the long arm of Erdogan, utilizing public funds to suppress domestic political opponents beyond Turkey’s borders and establish an ideological educational monopoly aligned with the political objectives of the Erdogan government.
Solidarity with Others’ report on Maarif:
