Deporting Tourists

Government response: A Moldovan government spokesperson stated in July 2025 that decisions to deny entry are made by border police officers based on risk assessments, and not by politicians. However, this did not provide a specific reason for the deportations of Turkish nationals.

The title of this thread shocked/shook me so hard, I had to click on it.

@deneme56  So sad this is happening.  But “why?”

@SimCityAT  “risk assessment” must be the answer

Which did not cure me from the shock&shake (because, like you said: “this did not provide a specific reason for the deportations of Turkish nationals”).

So I googled it, and found out about:

The deportation, in 2018, of 7 Turkish-nationals, teachers and/or managers at the private “Orizont” high-school (chain) – previously known as “Liceul Moldo-Turc” – in Moldova.

One article, in BalkanInsight dot com – which pleads completely in their favor – details the case of one of them: Mujdat Celebi.  He taught at- and was the financial director of- the Orizont high school in Durlești.  The same article states: “All of them were accused of financing terrorism and having links to the movement led by the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen”.

Per Wikipedia:

    “Gülen was an influential neo-Ottomanist” who, at first, worked hand-in hand with the Turkish president (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), until they split around the 2013 “corruption scandal”.  In 2015 Turkey placed Gülen on its “most wanted terrorists list”.  Given that he resided in the United States since 1999, astoundingly well-connected there and world-wide, the Turkish extradition request did not touch him.  Yet it resulted in U.S.–Turkey tensions centered on him.  Do you follow??

    He lead the “Gülen movement”, with “millions of followers” in Turkey and world-wide.  He conducted his neo-ottoman activism from his secluded abode in Pennsylvania.  If you followed so far, then here it comes:

    Gülen’s best-concealed and most influential venue consists of the network of schools he (through his followers) established, first in Turkey, then extensively world-wide.

Long story short, the deportation of the 7 Turkish teachers was caused by legal charges against them in Turkey, whereas while awaiting political asylum in Moldova, they engaged in subversive Islamic indoctrination of their pupils in the country who offered them refuge.  The extradition was a joint Turkish and Moldovan Action.  But only Moldovan authorities were taken to task by such as AI and ECtHR [via their gülen connections].  Because who was going to fire Erdoğan!?!  And the Moldovans should have first initiated proper notifications and court procedures [thus giving said connections time to intervene].

It is sad the Orizont students had to go through this.  And that many of them still don’t know what they were saved from.

To understand, one needs more than the basic notion of MoldoRomanian-Turkish relations history.  Why gülenists target Moldova even more than other places.  And how come that through and from Turkey scores of shady entities target Moldova for traffic [of drugs, humans and organs, among other items].  Which had marred Moldova for decades.  Or for fast passage to and from Ukraine and/or Russia / the war zone.  Who KNOWS, knows.  Who doesn’t KNOW, writes comprehensive articles on the human rights of neo-ottomans. 

How about the human rights of the Moldovans?

The only way to keep danger out of Moldova, is to deny it entry. 

On reddit, under “A tourist from Turkey”, someone posted: “a lot of russian shady stuff goes through Turkey and that's the reason they do it?”. 

Articles on tourist websites and posts on tourist forums amount to the same.  The “passport officer” checks, asks, and on that basis decides who gets the “background security check”.  Which takes minutes to hours.  They deny entry means they found a flaw.  If they are under security alert, they’ll be a lot stricter.

By the way: have you seen the warning on Travel dot State dot Gov: “Exercise increased caution when traveling to Türkiye due to terrorism and arbitrary detentions”