The Turkish Interior Ministry announced on Monday that a total of 448 people were detained in the past week as part of an ongoing witch-hunt carried out by the Turkish government against followers of the faith-based Gülen movement.
Turkish police had detained 593 the previous week for their alleged links to the movement.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
