Turkish police on Friday detained a second lawyer representing Islamic preacher and government critic Alparslan Kuytul as part of a growing investigation that has resulted in 62 detentions, the TR724 news website reported.
Lawyer Alişan İnci was among those detained, two days after Bilal İpek, another of Kuytul’s lawyers, was taken into custody in the first round of raids on Wednesday, prompting concern over the detentions of lawyers representing Kuytul and his supporters.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and a human rights defender, criticized the authorities for detaining people targeted in the investigation as well as for taking their lawyers into custody, calling the move a “scandal.”
Ömer Hakseven, a lawyer representing members of the Furkan movement, an Islamic group founded by Kuytul, called on the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) to condemn the detentions, saying the rule of law could not be upheld where lawyers were not safe and urging legal professionals to speak out against what he described as unlawful treatment.
Hakseven also said several of his clients were not allowed to have lawyers of their choice present while giving statements, with police citing instructions from the prosecutor.
The latest detentions came two days after police carried out simultaneous raids at 49 locations in six provinces as part of an investigation led by the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. Thirty-two people, including Kuytul and his wife, Semra Kuytul, were detained in Wednesday’s raids.
Kuytul’s daughter Meryem Kuytul said counterterrorism and narcotics police carried out a second search of the Furkan Nesli magazine offices on Thursday, a day after an initial search in which, she said, no incriminating evidence had been found.
Meryem Kuytul said the officers remained inside the offices for hours before allowing representatives to accompany the search and warned that the movement would not accept as legitimate any incriminating evidence subsequently reported to have been found in there.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek has said the investigation concerns alleged criminal offenses and the proceeds of crime, rather than the group’s religious beliefs or views.
Kuytul and his supporters, however, say the investigation is politically motivated, pointing to its timing. It was launched shortly after Kuytul criticized a police operation targeting another Islamic community, known as the Süleymanlılar, after which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief advisor Oktay Saral targeted him on social media, saying his “turn” was coming.
Kuytul, an Islamic scholar and longtime critic of President Erdoğan’s government, founded the Furkan Education and Service Foundation in 1994. The group has frequently criticized the government and has faced repeated police intervention, administrative penalties and criminal investigations.
He was jailed in 2018 after criticizing Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria and opposing its offensive in Afrin. He was acquitted of terrorism-related charges in 2020.
Kuytul was also arrested in 2022 in connection with the abduction of a businessman in Adana, on charges of instigating the deprivation of liberty, extortion, bodily harm and torture, which he denied. He was released pending trial in June 2023.
