Turkish police have detained 18 people in a series of coordinated house raids over their alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish media reported.
Detention warrants were issued for a total of 20 people across three provinces by İzmir and İstanbul prosecutors as part of two separate investigations into the movement.
The accusations against the suspects include having an account at the now-closed Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; having worked at Gülen movement affiliated organizations; or communicating with their contacts within the movement via payphones or encrypted messaging app ByLock.
The detentions came despite a landmark European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment delivered last year which made clear that the use of the ByLock messaging app does not constitute a criminal offense. The app, once widely available online, has been considered by the Turkish government a secret tool of communication among supporters of the Gülen movement, despite the lack of any evidence that ByLock messages were used for any criminal activity.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations in 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following the abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The Turkish government accepted such daily activities as having an account at or depositing money in Gülen movement affiliated Bank Asya, working at any institutions linked to the movement or subscribing to certain newspapers and magazines as benchmarks for identifying and arresting tens of thousands alleged members of the movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
Since the coup attempt, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. As of July 2024, there are 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism charges in Gülen-linked trials.
Between June 2023 and June 2024, Turkish authorities carried out a total of 5,543 police operations and arrested 1,595 people linked to the movement.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
