Turkey Accused of Abusing Visa-Free Passports to Send Imams to Flanders

Flem­ish Min­is­ter for Employ­ment Zuhal Demir has urged For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Maxime Prévot to launch an inves­ti­ga­tion into the alleged abuse of the Flan­ders immi­gra­tion sys­tem by the Turk­ish author­i­ties. On 19 Octo­ber 2025, The Brus­sels Times report­ed that Turkey had abused visa-free pass­ports to send imams to Flan­ders to influ­ence third and fourth-gen­er­a­tion Flem­ish Turks. The arti­cle begins:

Flem­ish Min­is­ter for Employ­ment Zuhal Demir has accused Turkey of abus­ing visa-free green pass­ports to send pro-Erdo­gan imams to Bel­gium to influ­ence third and fourth-gen­er­a­tion Flem­ish Turks. She has urged For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Maxime Prévot to launch an inves­ti­ga­tion, accord­ing to a press release issued on Sun­day. Green pass­ports allow Turk­ish nation­als, who would usu­al­ly require a visa to enter Europe, to legal­ly stay for up to 90 days. In Flan­ders, the pass­ports also exempt hold­ers from apply­ing for a work per­mit, a require­ment intro­duced in 2019 for reli­gious rep­re­sen­ta­tives of recog­nised faith com­mu­ni­ties. Demir high­light­ed that these reg­u­la­tions were tight­ened to lim­it for­eign gov­ern­ments’ influ­ence on local reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties. In 2024 alone, 18 work per­mit appli­ca­tions were sub­mit­ted by reli­gious rep­re­sen­ta­tives, of which 17 were reject­ed for this reason.

Read more: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/1802503/flemish-minsiter-turkey-abuses-visa-free-passports-to-send-imams-to-flanders

Key Points

• Flem­ish Min­is­ter Zuhal Demir accused Turkey of using green pass­ports to send pro-Erdo­gan imams to Flan­ders to influ­ence Turk­ish dias­po­ra communities.

• Green pass­port hold­ers are exempt from work per­mit require­ments in Flan­ders, a loop­hole alleged­ly exploit­ed by Ankara to deploy Diyanet-affil­i­at­ed imams.

• In 2024, 17 out of 18 reli­gious work per­mit appli­ca­tions were reject­ed due to for­eign influ­ence con­cerns, high­light­ing sys­temic scrutiny.

• Neigh­bor­ing coun­tries includ­ing Ger­many and France have tak­en steps to curb Diyanet’s influ­ence, with Ger­many deport­ing imams over espi­onage concerns.

Diyanet: Erdogan’s Influence Vehicle over European Muslims

Diyanet oper­ates as Turkey’s state reli­gious author­i­ty respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs, and sends imams to mosques across Europe with salaries paid by Ankara or Turk­ish con­sulates. Diyanet’s bud­get for con­struc­tion, main­te­nance, and pro­grams of thou­sands of affil­i­at­ed mosques is pro­vid­ed by the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment, with mis­sion­ar­ies and man­agers sent by Ankara receiv­ing gov­ern­ment salaries.

Its Ger­man branch, the Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs (DITIB), man­ages over 900 mosques in Ger­many alone, with the Diyanet deter­min­ing the­o­log­i­cal guide­lines for imams’ ser­mons while main­tain­ing orga­ni­za­tion­al and finan­cial ties direct­ly to Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan’s admin­is­tra­tion. Ger­man author­i­ties and polit­i­cal lead­ers have urged gov­ern­ment action to restrict DITIB’s influ­ence local­ly to reduce for­eign influ­ence, while France closed the Diyanet’s bank accounts and end­ed pro­grams allow­ing coun­tries to send imams with­out French over­sight. DITIB rep­re­sen­ta­tives hold seats on advi­so­ry boards of Islam­ic the­ol­o­gy pro­grams at Ger­man uni­ver­si­ties and coop­er­ate with state schools, embed­ding Turk­ish reli­gious influ­ence with­in Euro­pean edu­ca­tion­al sys­tems. Aus­tri­a’s IGGÖ signed a mem­o­ran­dum with Diyanet in 2025 to deep­en insti­tu­tion­al coop­er­a­tion, spark­ing con­tro­ver­sy due to Erbaş’s dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rhetoric and high­light­ing grow­ing ten­sions over for­eign reli­gious influ­ence in Euro­pean Mus­lim communities.

Exter­nal references:

• The Many Faces of Turkey’s Reli­gious Soft Power
• The transna­tion­al pol­i­tics of reli­gion: Turkey’s Diyanet, Islam­ic com­mu­ni­ties and beyond
• Turkey’s Diyanet, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood to woo Euro­pean Muslims

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.