A Turkish court on Friday ordered the arrest of five people in Tekirdağ province, including four accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported.
Police stopped two vehicles on the Tekirdağ–İstanbul highway and detained seven people, including four accused of links to the Gülen movement who were preparing to leave the country, as well as three others alleged to have assisted them. Two of those detained were released under judicial supervision.
No further details were provided by authorities regarding the evidence cited in the arrests.
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 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.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under active investigation nearly a decade later.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
