Afghan-Turk schools: Parents to move apex court soon

KABUL (Pajhwok): Police in capital Kabul are not allowing parents of the Afghan-Turk schools’ students to stage a protest against the institutes’ handover to the Turkish government.

The Turkish government on Monday took over a dozen schools and three tuition centers linked to the Fethullah Gulen movement in Afghanistan.

The handover comes after a Dec 12, 2017 raid by National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces on an Afghan-Turk school in Kabul, arresting four teachers, including one Afghan in Shah-i-Doshamshira area of Kabul.

The management of Afghan-Turk schools in Afghanistan was handed over from Afghan-Turk CAG Educational NGO (ATCE), the organization that runs the schools, to the Turkish government at a ceremony here.

At the ceremony, acting education minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shinwari, and İsmet Yılmaz, Turkish education minister, signed an agreement.

The parents of students were on road when the agreement was signed a day earlier, but police citing growing security threats did not allow the parents to continue their protest. Police have requested teachers and students of the schools to abandon their protest.

Fazal Ahmad Manawi, member of the Afghan-Turk Schools parents committee, told reporters: “Until we are alive, no one can transfer the authority of the schools, no matter if the government uses armored tanks, no one will be allowed to enter the schools.”

He said the building of the schools had been constructed on ‘personal expenses’ of the students and the teachers and nobody had the right to capture it.

Abdul Shakor Dadras, another member of the parents committee, expressed similar views and added parents would soon move the Supreme Court against the handover.

nh/ma