For the summer semester 2021, more than 600 international students have been admitted to a degree program at the state Munzur University in Dersim. The Alevi-Kurdish province, however, is concerned about the composition of the students.

The large-scale assimilation policy of the Turkish state in the Alevi-Kurdish province of Dersim is taking on a new dimension, according to HDP Istanbul MP Ali Kenanoğlu. For the summer semester of 2021, more than 600 international students have received approval for a course at Munzur University, which is considered the center of the regime indoctrination. The composition of the students, however, is worrying: more than 90 percent of foreign students are nationals of countries such as Syria, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Iraq - regions in which Turkey is intensively active with educational institutions to strengthen soft power, such as the state Maarif Foundation, as well as militarily present to enforce its leadership in the Islamic world.

Kenanoğlu explicitly warns that the future students in Dersim could be supporters of the Salafist school of thought.

Kenanoğlu: We are more than alarmed

“We expect state universities to act in accordance with the existing culture and history of the city and the structure of their social space. As expected, the University of Munzur should therefore properly record, promote and protect all facets of Alevism, linguistic diversity, customs, traditions and structures in Dersim,” Kenanoğlu said in parliament in Ankara on Monday. The basis for action at this university, however, is the destruction of the ethno-cultural, linguistic and ethno-religious mosaic of Dersim. "It is more than alarming that the future foreign students come almost entirely from Islamic and Islamist countries."

More than 400 students from Syria

According to Kenanoğlu, 422 of the total of 609 foreign students living in Dersim from spring onwards were Syrian nationals, another 31 were from Somalia, 30 from Egypt and 76 from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Morocco, Libya, Iraq and Iran. “Against this background, it is of existential importance for the Alevi population in Dersim to find out which political, ideological and religious views these students have.”

Considering the state's efforts to promote assimilation the idea that 600 allegedly Islamist people are to be living in the provincial town of just 35,000 inhabitants arouses deep concern. The university management, on the other hand, is keeping a low profile. Inquiries regarding the topic have so far been ignored.