Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son, who is one of the trustees of the Islamist Youth Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV), has established one more foundation in cooperation with some Turkish capitalists in order to continue designing public institutions on the pretext of ‘reducing state interference in public services’.
The objective of Bilal Erdoğan’s new Islamist foundation, YETEV, is "to make all kinds of contribution for the development of education in order to reduce the state interference in public services, to carry out educational services and to contribute to the development of the youth by realizing other missions stated in the foundation voucher," according to the reports.
In case the foundation is closed, its estates and rights will be transferred to TÜGVA/TÜRGEV - the Youth Foundation of Turkey whose founder is also Erdoğan's son.
There are many well-known pro-government capitalists in the board of directors of the newly-established foundation.
In 2014, a tape recording had shown that Erdoğan's son aimed to design Turkey’s national education system by interfering in the affairs of the Ministry of National Education through his foundations such as TÜRGEV.
The recording also showed that Bilal Erdoğan gave orders about the introduction of 'single-sex education system' in schools and dormitories, and the further promotion of Islamic imam-hatip high schools in line with the Islamization policy of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). In recent years, a slew of government initiatives has pushed Islam deeper into Turkey’s nominally-secular education system.
The recording was part of a police investigation into corruption at TÜRGEV.
Turkey saw the growth of Erdoğan-family led foundations, such as younger daughter’s KADEM or Ensar Foundation, which had been brought to Turkey’s agenda due to 45 children sexually abused by a teacher at its dormitories.
In 2014, Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu submitted a parliamentary question asking if the Erdoğans' TÜRGEV had received $99,999,900 donation in its account at Vakıfbank on April 26, 2012, in return for a construction permit for Saudi King Abdullah’s plot of land on the shores of the Bosphorus. Then Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç confirmed at the time that TÜRGEV had received $99,999,900 in aid from abroad between 2008 and 2012.
TÜRGEV has been granted the land in İstanbul’s Başakşehir district for 30 years to establish a university. The 779,000-square-meter-land, which has been granted to the foundation for 3 million Turkish Liras, is worth 606 million liras according to the Finance Ministry’s official papers.
