A Dutch court has overturned asylum rejections in three separate cases involving Turkish citizens linked to the faith-based Gülen movement, ruling that they faced persecution if returned to Turkey and ordering authorities to grant them refugee protection.
The Hague District Court found that the absence of an ongoing investigation or prosecution did not by itself eliminate the risk of persecution and that the applicants’ past treatment, individual circumstances and current country information on the continued targeting of people associated with the Gülen movement had to be considered together.
Dutch authorities had largely accepted the applicants’ links to the Gülen movement and the problems they had faced in Turkey but rejected their asylum applications on the grounds that they had not shown they faced a current risk of persecution if returned.
The court overturned the asylum rejections in all three cases and ordered Dutch authorities to grant the applicants refugee protection.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a 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.
In the first case the applicant, a former military school student, said he was detained and prosecuted following the coup attempt in 2016 before being acquitted. The court, citing a document indicating that his criminal case had not been fully concluded and country information showing that former military school students allegedly linked to the movement could continue to be targeted by Turkish authorities, concluded that he faced a risk of persecution if returned to Turkey.
The second case concerned a Turkish family of four. The father had been prosecuted over alleged links to the Gülen movement following the coup attempt and was later acquitted but was dismissed from public service by an emergency decree. Citing his history, the family’s individual circumstances and current country information, the court concluded that they faced a risk of persecution if returned to Turkey.
The third case involved a man who had served more than four years of a prison sentence handed down over alleged Gülen links and said he was tortured in custody and prison before leaving Turkey following his conditional release. The court considered his previous prosecution, his departure in violation of his release conditions, continued police inquiries about his whereabouts and his activities with the movement in the Netherlands, concluding that he faced a risk of persecution if returned to Turkey.
In March the Dutch Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, upheld a stricter policy requiring individual assessments of asylum applications from alleged Gülen movement followers but said authorities could not dismiss risks stemming from family ties or activities linked to the movement abroad.
A Dutch government report published in February 2025 said Turkish authorities continued to monitor and prosecute people over alleged links to the Gülen movement. The report also documented discrimination against their family members and Turkish efforts to target alleged movement followers abroad.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 127,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 10,485 still in prison and legal proceedings ongoing against 83,404 individuals.
