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Mestan Özcan, the Tekirdağ Chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), went to the houses of Süleymanpaşa Islamic Vocation High School students and handed out school reports, as the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year came to an end last Friday (January 22).
After the related video was shared on social media, what Özcan did has sparked harsh criticisms, especially about the privacy of students.
Confirming the incident, Labor and Science Laborers' Union (Eğitim-Sen) Tekirdağ Branch Chair Kamil Sarı in northwestern Turkey has underlined that school reports are official documents and they cannot be given to persons other than the students themselves or their parents.
Sarı has announced that they, as the Tekirdağ Branch of the union, will file a criminal complaint against the school principal for distributing students' official documents. He has briefly stated the following:
'Political show'
"We have learned about the issue upon the complaints that we received from our students' parents. School reports are official documents.
"Normally, they are not given to maternal or paternal uncles or another relative; we cannot understand how they could be given to the provincial chair of a political party. While we are making efforts to rid schools of religious sects and cults, parties are let into schools. This is unacceptable, this means the politicization of education, this is a political show."
Indicating that school reports have not been printed, Sarı has said that what happened in Tekirdağ province raises suspicions.
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) former MP Barış Yarkadaş, also a former journalist, has shared the video of Mestan Özcan while handing out school reports by going from door to door.
Noting that Özcan distributed the reports by going to the houses of students, Yarkadaş has said, "The person who gave the confidential information of students to the AKP is the School Principal Abdullah Şenol..."
1- AKP Tekirdağ İl Başkanı Mestan Özcan, Süleymanpaşa İmam Hatip Lis. öğrencilerinin karnelerini evlerine giderek dağıtıyor. Öğrencilerin gizli kalması gereken bilgilerini AKP'ye veren kişi ise Okul Müdürü Abdullah Şenol... Şenol'un makam odasına astığı fotoğrafı görünce zaten >> pic.twitter.com/mDubbRC97J
— Barış Yarkadaş (@barisyarkadas) January 24, 2021
'No political motivations'
Amid these criticisms, AKP's Mestan Özcan has spoken to the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA). Claiming that the school reports were printed by the students' parents themselves, AKP Tekirdağ Chair Özcan has said, "Parents printed the school reports and invited us. We could not hold back from contributing to such a good deed and happiness."
He has also said that the Ministry of Education or the School Principal were not informed about the distribution of school reports or sharing of students' addresses. He has argued that they had already been in contact with the parents, adding that they got permission from them.
He has also argued that the activity was not done with any political motivations oriented towards collecting votes. "Our aim was to surprise the young people and encourage goodness. We shared them by getting permission from the parents and our children," he has noted. (RT/SD)
