Turkish authorities have detained 36 suspects in coordinated raids across four provinces as part of an ongoing investigation into a business allegedly linked to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish state broadcaster TRT reported.
The operation, led by İstanbul’s counterterrorism and intelligence units, was conducted across Istanbul, Ankara, Yozgat and Gümüşhane. The suspects were accused of continuing to socialize with people having links to the movement, expressing admiration for the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen during phone conversations or financially supporting individuals and families affected by government persecution due to their alleged connections to the movement.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Gülen, 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 an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
In Turkey, even symbolic expressions of support for the movement, including mourning or bidding farewell to Gülen on social media, have led to criminal investigations and prosecutions under counterterrorism laws.
Additional charges indicated that the business provided employment opportunities to people connected to the movement. Some suspects were also found to have used the ByLock mobile messaging app in the past.
Although the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in several cases that using the ByLock messaging app does not constitute a criminal offense, the Turkish government has treated the app — once publicly available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play — as evidence to identify and arrest alleged followers of the Gülen movement on terrorism charges following the coup attempt.
Since the failed coup, 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.
