Turkish police have detained six people in western İzmir province for allegedly praising the late Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a longtime foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on social media, Turkish Minute reported.
Gülen inspired a faith-based movement that the Turkish government accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, an accusation the movement strongly denies.
The İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for seven people as part of an investigation into alleged propaganda for the Gülen movement, which Turkey designates as a terrorist organization. The detainees are accused of writing social media posts that were seen as praising Gülen, who died in the United States on October 20, 2024, at the age of 83.
The İzmir Police Department’s counterterrorism unit carried out the detentions, while efforts to locate the one remaining person being sought are ongoing. Turkish authorities have not provided details on the specific content of the social media posts.
The detentions come amid a broader crackdown on Gülen’s followers, who have faced systematic persecution since the failed coup. Ankara has imprisoned tens of thousands of alleged Gülen supporters and dismissed over 100,000 public servants from their jobs, citing links to the movement.
Following Gülen’s death, Turkish authorities escalated measures against individuals and media outlets airing messages perceived to be sympathetic to him. The country’s media watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), recently fined a news website after a journalist expressed condolences for Gülen’s passing on air. The journalist was later detained and dismissed from her job.
The editor-in-chief of a critical news website was arrested for expressing condolences over Gülen’s passing on social media and was released pending trial after spending two months in prison.
Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Turkey’s crackdown on dissent, warning that counterterrorism laws are used to silence opposition and punish expressions of sympathy for groups labeled as enemies of the state. Turkey ranks among the world’s worst countries for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders.
President Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and 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 the abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
