Dutch court: School linked to Gulen is not ‘terrorist’

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Dutch court has banned a group of parents from calling a Dutch school a “terrorist school” because of its alleged links to the Islamic cleric Turkey accuses of masterminding July’s failed coup.

Friday’s ruling highlights tensions that have emerged at schools for Turkish-Dutch children since the attempt at toppling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A court in Haarlem says four parents of former pupils at De Roos primary school in Zaanstad, north of Amsterdam, labelled it a “Fethullah Terrorist Organization school” in a Whatsapp group, saying it had links to U.S. based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey alleges is the brain behind the attempted coup.

While ordering parents to stop calling De Roos a “terrorist school,” the judge said they could still call it a “Gulen school.”