A total of 3,093,084 people in Turkey have been investigated for terrorism-related offenses since a coup attempt in 2016, with 527,100 convicted, justice ministry statistics show, deepening concerns over the political use of the country’s vague counterterrorism laws.
Compiled by lawyer Levent Mazılıgüney from justice ministry records, the data illustrates how terrorism charges have become a catch-all tool, ensnaring alleged Gülen movement affiliates as well as journalists, Kurdish activists and other government critics.
The number of people convicted of terrorism-related crimes in Turkey jumped ninefold after the 2016 coup attempt, rising from 38,618 to 348,159 between 2017 and 2022, according to justice ministry data.
During a parliamentary budget session, Gizem Özcan, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), cited the figures, saying while there are roughly 300,000 terrorism suspects recorded worldwide, Turkey has treated more than 3 million people as such. She said the outcome is “a climate of fear created by political power,” arguing that the country is now governed by a legal system shaped by political needs.
Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has refrained from commenting.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him 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 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 the 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.
Mazılıgüney said the problem is not the terrorism itself but the vague legal definitions and their political use, which allow authorities to treat ordinary social or professional ties as evidence of criminality. He added that acquittals or dropped charges do not undo the harm, since being labeled a terrorism suspect has lasting consequences for employment, security clearances and social life.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that remained in effect until July 19, 2018. During this period, the government carried out a purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight by issuing a number of government decrees. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 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.
Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs but also banned from working again in the public sector and getting a passport to seek employment abroad. The government also made it difficult for them to work formally in the private sector, with notes put on the social security database about dismissed public servants in order to deter potential employers.
International and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized Turkey’s counterterrorism framework as a tool for political repression, warning that many individuals have been prosecuted merely for having social or professional ties to the Gülen movement or for exercising their right to free expression. They continue to call for clearer definitions of terrorism in the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and the Counterterrorism Law (TMK) to reduce arbitrariness.
