Turkey’s justice minister said Ankara has asked the Netherlands to extradite 217 people over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, renewing a long-running demand during talks in Ankara on Wednesday with Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel, Turkish Minute reported.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim scholar 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.
Turkish Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the meeting with the Dutch minister focused on judicial cooperation between the two countries.
In a statement posted after the meeting, Gürlek said Turkish officials reminded the Dutch delegation of Turkey’s campaign against the Gülen movement. He said Turkey also sought the extradition of a leftist militant accused by Ankara of ordering the 2015 hostage killing of prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz.
The extradition push comes as Dutch courts continue to treat cases involving Gülen movement supporters with caution. On March 25 the Dutch Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, said the human rights situation for Gülen supporters in Turkey remains “worrying.”
According to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for 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.
