A Turkish court has blocked access to 12 news reports detailing sexual abuse allegations against a staff member in a dormitory affiliated with an Islamic cult, the BirGün news website reported on Thursday.
The court’s decision came in response to a petition filed by the Ministry of Family and Social Services, which argued that the published reports could negatively affect the psychosocial development of children and cause public outrage.
The dormitory, identified as the Sugözü Male Student Dormitory located in the Alanya district of Turkey’s southern province of Antalya, is said to be connected to the Sūlaymanite religious order, a group with an estimated 2 million followers in Turkey, inspired by the late cleric Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan.
The allegations involve G.R.U., a 21-year-old member of the dormitory staff accused of abusing 10 male students between the ages of 11 and 14. The prosecutor is seeking a sentence of up to 94 years in prison for crimes including sexual assault and harassment.
The ministry’s request stated that the news coverage might “constitute acts of abuse against children, potentially impacting their psychological and social development adversely and causing public outrage.”
In response, the Antalya 1st Criminal Court of Peace granted the request, implementing “access blocking” and “content removal” orders for the reports, including those published by BirGün.
The court’s ruling highlighted concerns over the violation of the victims’ personal rights. The decision has been met with criticism on social media.
This case has once again brought to light the recurring issues surrounding dormitories affiliated with religious groups in Turkey. In recent years similar establishments have been the center of multiple abuse scandals, sparking nationwide debate on the oversight and regulation of such institutions.
G.R.U.’s trial begins on April 1 at the Alanya 2nd High Criminal Court.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s close ties to Islamic cults that have been on the rise in Turkey in recent years have been a subject of debate in the country.
In January 2022, opposition politicians blamed the government for the death of Enes Kara, a medical faculty student at Fırat University in the eastern Turkish province of Elazığ who allegedly died by suicide after being subjected to mobbing in his dormitory, which is linked to an Islamic cult, in addition to pressure from his parents.
Religious cults in Turkey came to the public agenda again in December 2022, when the daughter of a man affiliated with the İsmailağa community sparked outrage due to her criminal complaints filed based on the allegation that she was married off at the age of six and has been subjected to sexual abuse ever since.