Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday signed a decree closing Istanbul Bilgi College, one of many nation’s oldest personal universities. It comes eight months after the college’s house owners had been seized by the state in a legal investigation into fraud and cash laundering fees.
The decree, revealed within the Official Gazette, cites as its foundation a legislation that enables personal establishments to shut if the “anticipated stage of training and coaching…is insufficient.”
The judgment additionally mentioned the license was revoked as a result of “the founding basis was positioned underneath trusteeship.” College administration has not commented.
The Kücukcekmece Chief Prosecutor’s Workplace launched an investigation into Can Holding in September 2025, alleging that the group’s executives established a legal group and had been concerned in cash laundering and tax evasion.
Detention orders had been issued for 10 individuals, together with principals Mehmet Shakil Can, Kemal Can and Kenan Tekder.
As a part of the operation, 121 can holding firms had been seized and positioned underneath the management of the Financial savings and Deposit Insurance coverage Fund (TMSF). Amongst these seized had been the tv channels Habertürk and Present TV, the financial information channel Bloomberg HT, the Doğa faculty community, and Istanbul Bilgi College.
Investigators mentioned on the time that they found that “an enormous amount of cash of unknown origin was flowing in by firms affiliated with Can Holding,” and that cash was being transferred between firms to hide the supply. It’s suspected that the cast paperwork had been additionally used to scale back tax legal responsibility, they mentioned in a press release.
The three media firms had been acquired by Can Holding in December 2024.
The prosecutor added that a few of Can Holding’s actions had been “instantly financed with the proceeds of crime.”
TMSF was established in 1983 as a financial institution deposit insurance coverage establishment, however its powers had been considerably expanded by authorities decree following the 2016 coup try, and additional expanded by authorized reforms that took impact in January 2025. Presently managing over 1,000 firms.
Critics and press freedom teams say the fund is a automobile for political stress on unbiased and opposition-affiliated firms.
After the appointment of the board members, Erol Osvall, President of the Council for Increased Schooling, instructed the general public that training at Bilgi College will proceed with out interruption. it isn’t.
Beneath Turkish larger training rules, college students from non-incorporated universities are routinely transferred to a chosen “guarantor” state establishment.
Bilgi College beforehand instructed T24 that the Mimar Sinan School of Advantageous Arts will tackle the function from 2021. If all college students can’t be accommodated, the Increased Schooling Council will designate a 3rd college to soak up the remaining college students.
The destiny of the educational workers was not talked about within the official assertion.
Based on June 7, 1996 as Turkey’s fourth personal basis college, Bilgi grew to become a part of the Laureate Worldwide College Community in 2006, a US-based group that operates universities on a number of continents. Can Holding acquired Bilgi College in 2019 for $90 million.
Bilgi College, which participates within the EU’s Erasmus change program, has greater than 20,000 college students from Turkey and overseas, and a few of its researchers are well-known of their fields.
