Pak-Turk school former student complains
Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter to you to attract the government’s attention toward an important issue, which has affected students like me. The government suddenly decided to close down Pak-Turk International School but it still expects me to study and shine. I am very upset, rather angry, but the government can’t understand my problem.
I felt worried over school closure as the government put my education in jeopardy. I haven’t been able to find a better school than the one I was forced to leave it. It was giving me quality education.
The future of students studying in private schools set up by the Pak-Turk International Schools and Colleges network plunged into uncertainty on the day the Pakistan government decided to close them down because these institutions were backed by the Fethullah Gulen-inspired Hizmet movement. Why they planned to shut down my school over Gulen issue. What I had to do with Gulen?
Why the government didn’t go our way, we the students were made to suffer. I think in a way that really was quite unfair.
I believe the school closure only proves how much the government cares about us.
Most Turkish teachers and members of staff working in Pak-Turk Schools have left Pakistan. Those still here are being harassed.
Why the schools registered with the relevant departments in a lawful manner that enrolled thousands of children in different cities after obtaining necessary approvals from the quarters concerned were abruptly closed? Recently Mesut Kacmaz, the former director of Pak-Turk School and his wife were picked up during a midnight from their rented house in the city of Lahore.
Kacmaz and his family had been staying in Wapda Town, Lahore on an asylum seeker certificate issued by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
The couple applied for asylum after Turkey requested Pakistan to deport the teachers for their alleged links to the Gulen movement.
Yours truly,
Salman Hussain, a former student of Pak-Turk school
