Turkey on Friday arrested Nasuh Mahruki, the founder and former president of search-and-rescue group AKUT, over a social media post alleging that authorities knowingly allowed a 2016 coup attempt to proceed.
An İstanbul court ordered Mahruki’s pretrial detention on charges of “inciting the public to hatred and hostility or degrading the public” after prosecutors opened an investigation into his post on X.
Mahruki was detained on Wednesday after returning to Turkey from South Africa, where he had traveled with his family. The Bakırköy Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in İstanbul launched the investigation over a post he shared marking the 10th anniversary of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt.
In the post Mahruki alleged that the coup attempt had been detected in advance but was allowed to proceed because it was seen as an opportunity to change Turkey’s system of government. He described the events as a “controlled coup attempt.”
Mahruki also accused the United States of being behind the attempted coup, saying it had “made Erdoğan king and checkmated the Turkish people.”
Prosecutors accused Mahruki of violating Article 216 of Turkey’s penal code, which covers “inciting the public to hatred and hostility or degrading the public.” The prosecution described his statements as baseless, according to Turkish media reports.
Mahruki denied the accusation during questioning, saying his post was intended to criticize the government’s response to the coup attempt rather than incite hatred. He said he did not understand how the charge could be linked to his post.
“The accusation brought against me cannot be drawn from this post,” Mahruki said, according to his statement reported by Turkish media.
Mahruki argued that state institutions had received warnings before the coup attempt but failed to prevent it. He said he was criticizing what he described as a delayed response that resulted in the death of 251 people during the failed coup.
The detention came a day after Turkey marked the anniversary of the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, one of the most politically consequential events in the country’s recent history. While the government blames the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by the late US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, critics have raised questions about whether Erdoğan had prior knowledge of the plot or exploited it to purge opponents, weaken the military and consolidate his power.
Following the coup attempt, Erdoğan immediately accused the Gülen movement of orchestrating the abortive putsch and significantly expanded an already underway crackdown on the movement’s supporters that began in 2013. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Mahruki is a founder and former president of AKUT, a volunteer search-and-rescue organization that became nationally prominent for its work following major earthquakes and other disasters. He is also a well-known mountaineer and government critic.
He was previously arrested on November 20, 2024, over social media posts accusing Turkey’s election authorities of preparing to undermine election security through electronic voting. He was released on December 5 after spending 14 days in pretrial detention. On February 21, 2025, an İstanbul court handed down a suspended 11-month sentence for publicly spreading misleading information.
