Turkish police on Wednesday detained outspoken Islamic cleric Alparslan Kuytul, his wife, Semra, and other members of the Furkan Foundation in coordinated raids across six provinces, one day after a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly warned that Kuytul would be targeted next.
Counterterrorism police searched 49 locations as part of an investigation led by the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. Officers detained the couple following a search of their home in the southern province of Adana, where the foundation is based.
Riot police and special operations teams surrounded the house during the operation. Kuytul’s supporters gathered outside and chanted slogans, briefly arguing with officers.
A video posted on Kuytul’s X account showed police taking him away in handcuffs. A statement on the account claimed that he and his wife were detained without being shown any detention orders.
The Furkan movement said one of Kuytul’s lawyers was also among those detained.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said prosecutors had begun legal proceedings against 32 suspects.
The complete list of detainees has not yet been released.
They are accused of establishing or leading a criminal organization, membership in the organization, laundering criminal proceeds, fraud, forgery of official documents and violations of tax law.
Gürlek said courts had appointed trustees to five companies and blocked access to 349 social media accounts as part of the investigation.
The minister described the investigation as targeting a group known publicly as the “Kuytul organization.”
He insisted that it was not directed at “any religious group, belief or opinion.”
The operation came one day after Oktay Saral, a chief adviser to Erdoğan, responded to Kuytul’s criticism of a recent police operation against the Süleymancılar, another Islamic community.
“You still haven’t come to your senses. Your turn will come!” Saral wrote on social media, referring to Kuytul.
He also used a Turkish expression warning Kuytul that “the water had heated up” for him, meaning that he was about to face serious consequences.
Kuytul had criticized the August 13 raids against the Süleymancılar in a video posted two days later.
He claimed the community was being punished for withholding political support from Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
“The Süleymancılar have not voted for the government for years. At one point they supported the CHP, I believe this was very important in the operation,” Kuytul said, referring to the main opposition Republican People’s Party.
“If they had supported the AKP, I am as certain as I am of my own name that this would not have happened to them.”
The Furkan movement said the raids a day after Saral’s warning showed that the investigation had been launched on political orders. Turkish officials deny political interference in criminal cases and claim that the judiciary acts independently.
Prominent human rights lawyer Eren Keskin also questioned the stated reasons for the operations against Furkan and the Süleymancılar.
“We certainly do not share the same worldview, but Alparslan Kuytul has taken an honorable stand,” Keskin said on X. “It is very clear that the operations against the Süleymancılar and the Kuytuls are intended to seize their companies and, consequently, their money.”
Police carried out the earlier operation against the Süleymancılar in 17 provinces, detaining community leader Alihan Kuriş and dozens of other suspects. Prosecutors described the group under investigation as a criminal organization operating for financial gain. Kuriş and 31 other suspects were later jailed pending trial.
The two operations within a week of each other have drawn attention to the government’s treatment of religious communities that do not support the AKP. Both investigations include financial allegations, company takeovers and the appointment of government trustees.
The Turkish government has used similar measures on a much larger scale during the long-running crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement.
President Erdoğan has targeted the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
According to a statement from Justice Minister Gürlek in July, an excess of 720,000 people have been investigated and more than 127,000 have been convicted in Turkey over alleged links to the Gülen movement since the coup attempt.
Government figures released in July also showed that Turkey had placed 784 companies under state trusteeship over alleged links to the movement.
The Furkan Education and Service Foundation was established by Kuytul in 1994. The Islamist group has frequently criticized Erdoğan’s government and has faced repeated police intervention, administrative penalties and criminal investigations.
In July 2025 authorities sealed the group’s Ankara headquarters and three local offices, accusing an affiliated association of operating unauthorized social facilities. The closures led to confrontations between police and Furkan supporters. Kuytul called the decision arbitrary and politically motivated.
The US State Department also referred to the treatment of Furkan members in its 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom. The report said Turkish authorities had announced no further action in an investigation into alleged police violence against Furkan members at a 2022 demonstration demanding the release of eight people detained in a kidnapping case.
According to Furkan Foundation members cited in the report, a 15-year-old was among those injured and required hospitalization. The report described Furkan as known for opposing Erdoğan’s political Islamist policies.
Kuytul was released from pretrial detention under judicial supervision in June 2023 after being jailed in a case concerning the alleged abduction of a businessman in Adana. He faced accusations including instigating unlawful confinement, extortion, bodily harm and torture, all of which he denied.
He was also jailed in 2018 after criticizing Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria and its offensive in Afrin. He was acquitted in that case in 2020.
Kuytul says the government has targeted him because of his criticism of Erdoğan, including his public opposition to the crackdown on the Gülen movement. The government denies using criminal investigations to silence its critics.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
