A young woman detained over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement in a case that made nationwide headlines five years ago has said she is still haunted by the trauma of a strip-search in police custody.
The woman, identified only by the initials Z.D., now 25, was among 30 university students arrested in Uşak on August 31, 2020 on charges later overturned in court. Police raided her family home in Eskişehir before dawn and took Z.D. into custody. She was later transferred to a police station in Uşak, where she said in an interview with the TR724 news website that she experienced the most humiliating moment of her life.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a 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 an abortive putsch that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Z.D. said she was taken into a glass-walled room for a strip-search, outside of which male officers were standing. Although a female officer assured her they would not turn around, she could still see them. The young woman was ordered to disrobe and squat three times.
“I felt completely exposed. My mind went blank,” she said. “It was already a shock to be arrested, and then this. … It felt like humiliation was part of the punishment.”
Another of the 30 students who had been arrested in Uşak in 2020 filed a formal complaint with prosecutors a year later claiming that she, too, had been strip-searched. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, an opposition lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and human rights advocate, shared the legal filing on X, criticizing the government’s handling of the case.
Özlem Zengin, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), described women who had revealed their experiences of unlawful prison strip-searches as “disreputable” and “immoral” during a speech in the Turkish parliament.
She said if unlawful strip-searches had occurred in prison, then the victims should have reported them immediately. Zengin added that allegations concerning strip-searches were “fictional” and were used by “terrorist organizations,” in particular by members of the Gülen movement to disparage the government.
Zengin has repeatedly denied allegations concerning unlawful strip-searches in prisons and accused Gergerlioğlu of terrorizing the legislature by bringing such allegations to the floor of parliament.
Z.D. said students at the police station were forced to sleep on concrete floors, denied access to basic hygiene and subjected to verbal abuse.
“One officer shouted, ‘Why aren’t you eating? You’re trying to starve yourselves so you’ll faint in court [and be pitied by the judge]. There will be no concessions for you,’” she said.
Z.D. recalled that one detainee was forced to clean a police station restroom as punishment.
Two or three days into her detention, she was interrogated without a lawyer present.
“They told me, ‘We know everything. Just admit it, or we’ll go after your family,’” she said. “They even mentioned my sister.”
The pressure continued for five days before she was released under judicial supervision.
Z.D. was acquitted in December 2023, but for Z.D. the legal victory was meaningless.
“I was acquitted, but I lived through hell. And my friends are still locked up,” she said. “I had already lost everything.”
She said she never felt safe in Turkey again. She stopped going to university classes out of fear, transferred to another school, then ultimately fled the country in 2023.
“I kept thinking someone was following me. I’d walk down the street wondering if I’d be taken again,” she said.
Even now, living in Europe, she says she hasn’t fully escaped her fear.
“When I hear a knock on the door early in the morning, I still jump,” she said. “If someone stares at me too long, I wonder if they’re a plainclothes officer.”
Z.D. was 20 years old when she was arrested. Now 25, she says she struggles to move forward.
“I should have been focused on my education, my future,” she said. “Instead, my 20s were stolen from me.”
For Z.D., the legal battle ended, but the scars remain.
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. There are currently 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
