Turkish authorities detained 247 individuals Tuesday morning over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement in police operations across multiple provinces, the TR724 news website reported.
The operations, based on three separate investigations, targeted military personnel, members of the police force and a döner restaurant chain. The Turkish government has intensified crackdowns on the movement over the past few months.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some of his family members and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
In a coordinated operation across İstanbul, İzmir and 41 other provinces, Turkish police detained 163 of 176 suspects for whom detention warrants had been issued as part of an investigation led jointly by the İstanbul and İzmir chief public prosecutor’s offices. The suspects include 174 active-duty military personnel, among them colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and noncommissioned officers.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that the detentions targeted individuals believed to have used payphones and fixed lines in a manner consistent with the movement’s alleged covert communication practices, a method Turkish authorities describe as key to identifying members in the military.
A second operation was led by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in coordination with the anti-smuggling crimes division. Police detained 21 active and former police officers across 14 provinces.
A third operation focused on people linked to Maydonoz Döner, a restaurant chain that Turkish authorities allege is affiliated with the Gülen movement and accuse it of serving as a financial front for the group. A total of 63 suspects were detained Tuesday morning across eight provinces, including Istanbul.
The chain has been the subject of several police raids in the past months, resulting in mass detentions.
Maydonoz Döner, founded in 2018 by businessman Ömer Şeyhin, expanded rapidly to over 400 locations in Turkey and abroad before trustees were appointed to oversee its operations, part of a broader practice of government seizures of companies linked to the movement.
Since the failed coup, Turkish authorities have pursued an extensive campaign against suspected Gülen supporters, targeting educators, journalists, civil servants and businesses. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, and more than 24,000 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
More than 700,000 people have been investigated and tens of thousands have been arrested or dismissed from public service.
