Young man who stayed at a religious community dormitory recounts his experiences: 'They would take us to remote, wooded places'

The young man, who said "As someone whose childhood was taken away, I wanted to share with you what I personally experienced," stated: "There is not a single line of exaggeration, fabrication, or lie in what I have written. Everything is something I personally lived through. There is nothing added; there may be things left out."

In the letter, the young man described what happened to him as follows:

"When I was 6 years old, my family began sending me to a course that provided education similar to a preschool, so that I could receive Islamic education and live a life with an Islamic outlook. During the period between 2000 and 2002, the place we attended looked like an ordinary apartment from the outside, but it was a place where religious education was given — Quran, sira, and other Islamic subjects. However, whenever the teachers learned that a police raid was coming, they would hide us and take us to remote, wooded places in accordance with that information.

"WE WERE AROUND 200 STUDENTS"

My family took me from there and this time decided to send me to a Quran course affiliated with the same religious community, where I would stay as a boarder. This course was in a five-storey building in Kasımpaşa. We were around 200 students, and it was there, at that very young age, that I first experienced being beaten, subjected to violence, and humiliated in front of everyone — and learned that when you are being beaten, no one will move to help you.

"WE WERE CHILDREN BEATEN WITH A HOSE AND DRAGGED OUT OF THE ROOM"

For trivial reasons, we were children who were beaten awake at 3 in the morning — before the morning call to prayer — to perform the tahajjud prayer, forced to pack up our bedding, get dressed, and leave the dormitory within five minutes, and if we could not, we were sometimes beaten with a hose until we were dragged out of the room. At 3 in the morning, we were made to take off our clothes collectively, and cold water was sprayed on us with a hose in the bathroom as if washing a car, while we were scrubbed with floor-cleaning brushes. At times we were subjected to falaka, and at times we were beaten on the palms of our hands until they turned purple and swelled. I was 7 or 8 years old, and after being subjected to falaka I could not stand on my feet.

"I LEARNED THAT HE HAD SEXUAL RELATIONS"

A short time later I was sent as a boarder to another Quran course in Ümraniye, Istanbul, also affiliated with the İ. community. My older brother had left that course before me, and after a while I began hearing things about him — I learned that he had had sexual relations with a person named Hikmet at the same Quran course where we had stayed together.

"HAMZA, MAHMUT, YUSUF, BİLAL… I STARTED TOO"

Shortly after, I learned that at least 10 more people still at the course were having such relations with one another. They did not even deny it themselves. Curious about what I had heard, I too began having sexual relations with others. The people I had relations with were: 1 Abdussamet 2 Hamza 3 Mahmut y 4 Yusuf 5 Bilal 6 Üsame 7 Abdulkadir 8 Mustafa 9 Ömer 10 Selman 11 Mahmut 12 Ramazan and a few more whose names I cannot recall. I had just turned 12 when I was placed at this course. Everyone knew everything, but no one could speak of it out loud.

"THESE PEOPLE ARE SERVING AS IMAMS"

Some of the people I personally had sexual relations with while at the Quran course are now actively serving as imams in the official roster of the Diyanet, teaching religion to the public; others serve in different capacities; and some are now working as instructors at courses affiliated with the İ.A. community — the very community I was once sent to for what was supposedly religious education."