Turkish government has launched legal investigations about 7,812 alleged members of the Gülen movement by solely basing on the denunciations sent by anonymous people to the official website of the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) in 2017.
According to a report by state-run Anadolu news agency on Thursday, MİT’s official website has received over 25,000 denunciations targeting the alleged members of the Gülen movement. Meanwhile, the number of denunciations targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has realised as around 11,000. The reports has not mentioned any information whether these denunciations have been made anonymous or by name.
However, according to the report, after analysing these denunciations MİT has sent the files related to 7,812 denunciations targeting the alleged members of Gülen movement to the prosecutor offices and other law enforcement units to be used as a base for operations and detentions. The report claimed that thanks to these denunciations numbers of alleged followers of the Gülen movement have been investigated.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
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.
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15. Turkey’s Interior Minister announced on December 12, 2017 that 55,665 people have been arrested. Previously, on December 13, 2017, The Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.
