17.01.2026 16:21
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that they have developed a comprehensive action plan to eradicate the issue of online betting and gambling. Calling on athletes and artists to provide support, President Erdoğan said, "If we do not crush the head of the modern plague called addiction early, we may face even bigger problems tomorrow."
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that they have implemented a comprehensive action plan to eradicate the root of the virtual betting and gambling problem.
Speaking at the 40th anniversary event of the Unity Foundation, President Erdoğan said, "We need our athletes and artists, whom our youth see as role models, to embrace this struggle. We need our families to become aware and recognize the issue."
Erdoğan's statements are as follows:
"I am experiencing the joy of being together with you at this meaningful program organized on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of our Unity Foundation. I pray to God that this gathering, where we have both reminisced and looked at a 40-year history filled with struggle and dedication, will be a source of goodness. I sincerely thank each of my brothers who contributed to the organization, our Unity Foundation, and the National Turkish Student Union."
SPECIAL THANKS TO İSMAİL KAHRAMAN
We just watched the documentary prepared for our brother İsmail Kahraman, who led the establishment of our Foundation. We once again saw how he put his hand under the stone for the nation and the homeland, and what services he provided to our country through his civil society work and the duties he undertook in politics. We also recalled how our Unity Foundation has come to this point through the sacrifices of many and the challenges it has overcome.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to İsmail Kahraman, who I have been proud to be a companion to for more than half a century, in your presence. May God be pleased with him for his efforts, his dedication; for guiding us with his knowledge, foresight, and experience; for walking with us, for being our companion and sharing our fate. I express my gratitude to each of my brothers who sweat under this roof, who work day and night for the sake of God's pleasure.
55 BRANCHES IN 50 CITIES!
My friends, I want to express this with great joy. The Unity Foundation, of which I am also one of the founders, has been successfully fulfilling an important mission in the field of education and culture for 40 years. With its 55 branches in 50 provinces, it supports our youth in a wide range of areas, from accommodation services to scholarship support, from scientific, cultural, and artistic activities to foreign language courses, preparing them for the future and guiding our young friends, who are the assurance of our future.
Through its conferences, panels, printed and digital publications, and more than twenty commissions in different specialized fields, our Unity Foundation is carrying our treasure of knowledge, culture, and wisdom from the past to the future. Our friends here have been doing their best for 40 years to raise a youth that clings tightly to national and spiritual values, shining brightly in the darkness with their knowledge, education, vision, and character.
"WE HAVE DONE THESE SERVICES DESPITE ALL OBSTACLES"
Since our Foundation's intention is good, thank God, both the effort and the labor are crowned with good results. Our brothers, who have grown up in this hearth where the understanding of unity is at its center, are today serving Turkey with their heads held high in every field, from politics to business life, from academia to bureaucracy. Despite all difficulties and troubles, since May 29, 1985, we have done these services, we are doing them, and as long as God gives us life, we will continue to do so, against those who have been waiting for the wheel to get stuck in the bump.
This place, as you can see, was not such a hall. This was the Sports Exhibition Palace during my term as mayor. And we held many conferences here with the master. And during Mr. Demirel's presidency, we demolished it and turned it into this state. And in those conferences, it seemed that it would collapse, the Sports Exhibition Palace had such a state. But thank God, we have provided such a hall to our Istanbul.
"NATIONAL TURKISH STUDENT UNION WAS A SCHOOL FOR US"
Of course, this reality has also been etched in our memories. Established in 1916, the National Turkish Student Union was a great plane tree that shaded thousands of students whose branches extended to every corner of our homeland as the most rooted student organization in Turkey. The National Turkish Student Union enabled many young people, including myself, to gain national consciousness during the painful days of Turkey, and moreover, to understand and comprehend this country, this nation, and this land. In the National Turkish Student Union, where I took an active role during my youth, there were many elders whom I addressed as brothers, from whom I learned a lot, many scholars, cultural figures, and action-oriented individuals, many of our thinkers. The National Turkish Student Union was a school for us. It was a hearth of wisdom that illuminated our hearts and minds.
However, let us not forget that one of the civil organizations that was crushed by the 1980 coup was the National Turkish Student Union. The coup plotters locked the door of the National Turkish Student Union for completely arbitrary reasons, simply out of enmity towards the nation. They wanted to extinguish this hearth. But they could not extinguish that spirit, which burned like a glowing fire in the hearts of every National Turkish Student Union member, that consciousness of struggle that flowed in their blood.
A door has closed, but with the infinite grace of God, a much wider and stronger new door has been opened. The Unity Foundation, established on the anniversary of the blessed conquest in 1985, has always stood by the nation and the national will since the day it was founded. From fighting against the prohibitive mentality of February 28 to the bloody betrayal of July 15, we have always seen the Unity Foundation alongside the nation, on the side of truth and justice during all the critical turning points and testing days when we wore the shirt of fire. For this, I thank each of you individually, and I say may God be pleased with you.
"THEY ARE TARGETING THE FAMILY INSTITUTION"
We are living in a period where the world is changing very rapidly. Information and communication are spreading quickly. Technology and digitalization offer new advantages. We all benefit from these blessings. However, we also feel the new threats that come with them closely. We are face to face with challenges that threaten 86 million citizens, from LGBT to addiction, from the disappearance of privacy to attacks on the family institution. The threat has only changed shape and size. The target remains the same. The target is humanity, it is the family. We have taken our precautions and are taking them. The fight against threats such as addiction, virtual betting, and drugs cannot be managed solely by the state. We have implemented a comprehensive action plan to eradicate the root of the virtual betting and gambling plague that drags our people into the quagmire.
We can only repel this wave of attacks targeting our youth and our generation if we unite and fight together. It is beneficial for our voluntary organizations and our media to support us in this struggle. We need our political parties to abandon absurd agendas and focus on the pressing issues of the country and the nation.
It is beneficial for the athletes and artists that our youth look up to to embrace this struggle.
REACTION TO THE OPPOSITION
Some have always been disturbed by this. At the root of many problems we face today lies this distorted mentality that is disgusted by its own intrinsic values.
The main opposition does not have such an agenda. They do not even follow the threats that await the youth. They come out and legitimize gambling. Those who support the anti-family and anti-nature movements known as LGBT are again these people. They are the same ones who insult and threaten the gendarmerie personnel and judiciary members who are doing their jobs. No ideas, no suggestions. They speak in 10 places every day, but there is nothing tangible. All that will be left of them is a voluminous dictionary of insults.
CALL TO ATHLETES AND ARTISTS
If we do not crush the head of the modern plague called addiction early on, God forbid, we may face deeper social crises tomorrow. Look, I say very clearly, we can only repel this wave of attacks targeting our youth, our generation, our future if we unite, act together, and fight together. It is not enough to just clean in front of one's own house. We must also extend a helping hand to our neighbors, especially by joining forces with them.
For this, we need the support and contribution of every segment of society. We need our volunteer organizations, our media, and our universities to shoulder this struggle with us. We need our political parties to abandon their absurd agendas and focus on the pressing issues of the country and the nation. We need our athletes, artists, and opinion leaders, whom our youth look up to, to embrace this struggle. Above all, we need our families to become aware and recognize the issue.
I emphasize again: We can only prevent the negative effects of digital techno culture on our youth with a spirit of solidarity. We can only break this cursed siege that aims to render the family insignificant, undermine our values, spiritually and mentally collapse our youth, and thus gradually enslave the individual if we join hands. "