The Universal Condemnation of the Hand Reaching Into the Donation Box, and the Test of Ahbap

However large physical rubble may be, it is cleared sooner or later; but the rupture that truly shakes a society to its core is when the bridges of trust built to heal those wounds are torn down by the very hands entrusted with hope.

After the earthquakes of 6 February 2023, millions of citizens, cutting back from their own table, donated to the Ahbap Association. At that day’s exchange rate, roughly $158 million — more than 3 billion lira — was raised. This money was not merely a figure entering bank accounts; it was a share of conscience entrusted to the hope of those trapped under rubble, to a child’s tent, to a family’s effort to get back on its feet.

In July 2026, within the scope of an investigation carried out by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Ahbap founder Haluk Levent and several others were taken into custody, with some subsequently arrested. The prosecutor’s statement contained clear language: it was alleged that earthquake donations were transferred by suspects into personal accounts; that roughly 120 million lira from the association’s accounts passed into accounts used by Levent and his assistant Yeliz Kaya; that through accounts belonging to association co-founder Alper Çelik, 990 million lira was wagered on legal betting between 2020-2026, with roughly 390 million lira lost; and that roughly $60 million in real-estate victimization was created using the association’s name and the promise of donation. Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) reports and account records were cited as grounds for these suspicions.

These are not yet rulings finalized by a court, but allegations. The law will proceed in light of the evidence, and the presumption of innocence will retain its force. But the picture now facing the public cannot be seen merely as a matter concerning one association or one individual. If even part of the allegations is confirmed, what we are looking at is a grave moral and legal violation that transcends political opinion, ideology, past good deeds, or artistic identity.

No ideology, no political identity, no religious affiliation and no past success can substitute for fidelity to what has been entrusted. Throughout human history, one of the most fundamental values enabling societies to endure has been the consciousness of trust. Because where trust does not exist, neither aid nor solidarity can survive.

In the Jewish tradition, Tzedakah is not a voluntary kindness but an obligation of justice that must be fulfilled. The Torah treats reaching for the right of the widow, the orphan and the needy as a grave violation against divine justice. In Christian teaching, Judas stealing from the common purse is narrated not merely as a financial crime but as a spiritual collapse. In Islamic law, public property and endowment property are not subjects of individual disposal; betrayal of trust is treated as a violation of another’s right requiring reckoning both in this world and the next. Three different faiths, three different legal traditions… the conclusion is the same: a hand reaching for the right of the needy is seen as one of the gravest moral violations.

Modern law preserves this same sensitivity. The trust placed in charitable organizations is specially protected. Because the existence of charitable institutions rests on society’s trust. When this trust is abused, the harm is not limited to the donor’s money alone; the hope of thousands who will need aid in the future is also damaged. Defenses such as “I was going to put it back,” “I used it temporarily,” “I borrowed it” are each assessed according to the evidence of the specific case. But ethically, the core principle does not change: using a resource entrusted by others for a specific purpose, for a different purpose without their explicit consent, gravely damages the relationship of trust.

What is truly lost is not the money. When a person donates, they do not merely send money from a bank account; they also send a share of their conscience. People who support, without ever meeting them, a child who lost their home in the earthquake, a patient awaiting cancer treatment, or a family that lost everything in a flood, are in fact entrusting each other with their mutual trust. If that trust is exploited, the harm is not done only to today’s victims. Thousands of people who will genuinely need help tomorrow will also pay the price. Because once people are deceived, they grow weary not only of the fraudster but of helping itself. That is where the real destruction begins.

History has repeatedly shown that the loss of trust produces consequences far heavier than economic damage. A drop in donation rates following major financial scandals is one of the most concrete examples of this. And the price is paid not so much by those who committed the offense, but by those genuinely in need of help. This is why the greatest capital of aid organizations is not money, but trust. Money can be earned again; trust is built over years, but can be destroyed by a single betrayal.

No one can buy advance forgiveness for wrongs they may commit in the future through the good deeds they did in the past. What makes people heroes or villains is not the image formed about them, but their conduct in the face of what has been entrusted to them. Society’s duty is to act according to principle, not according to the affection or anger felt toward individuals. Legal processes should proceed independently in light of the evidence, while the public should defend the sanctity of trust without turning unverified allegations into a verdict in advance. Because justice requires both punishing the offender and a fair and impartial process for everyone accused of an offense.

The day a society begins to excuse the hand reaching into the donation box is the day it begins to lose not only its money, but the trust it holds for one another. Rubble can be cleared again. Cities can be rebuilt. Economies can recover. But rebuilding the conscience of a society that has lost its trust is far harder than pouring concrete.

Because what keeps civilizations standing is not law alone, but trust. And fidelity to what is entrusted is the oldest and most universal measure of being human.