A foundation representing two Islamic primary schools in Zaandam and Purmerend is taking four parents to court for making negative comments about the schools and linking them to the Gülen movement.

The Zaanstad Islamic Education Foundation wants the parents to stop making comments about the school via social media and is demanding rectifications.

The parents are spreading unrest among other parents, the foundation’s lawyer Marcel Dekker is quoted as saying by broadcaster NOS. ‘They are saying “this is a Gülen school, so you can’t let your children attend it”,’ Dekker said. ‘The school is being accused of treachery and consorting with a terrorist organisation.’

The comments are pressuring other parents to remove their children from the school, Dekker said.

Some 120 children were removed from the De Roos school in Zaandam before the start of the new term. The ‘large majority’ are of Turkish origin, the town council said on Monday.

Shortly after the failed military coup in Turkey the school group issued a statement denying any links with any political movement or attempted coup, ‘both in the Netherlands and Turkey’.

The statement was made after the school featured on a list of organisations with supporters of the Ankara regime said should be boycotted.