Turkiye shutters liberal Istanbul university seized in criminal probe
Key takeaways
- Council of Higher Education promised to take measures to ensure Bilgi University students ‘suffer no harm’.
- The decree said the closure is effective immediately.
- The edict cites a law allowing the closure of the independent school if “the expected level of education and training … is insufficient”.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Council of Higher Education promised to take measures to ensure Bilgi University students ‘suffer no harm’.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan [File: Marco Simoncelli / AFP]By AFP and Reuters Published On 22 May 202622 May 2026Turkiye has revoked the operational licence for a top private university with liberal values, effectively forcing it to close in the middle of the academic year, after the institution was seized by the state in a criminal investigation last year.
In a presidential decree, published in the Official Gazette on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revoked the operating licence for Istanbul Bilgi University, which has an estimated 20,000 students from Turkiye and across the world.