Turkish authorities have detained 60 people, including 22 civil servants, over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for 72 people as part of an investigation. Sixty were detained in two rounds of operations carried out by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the Ankara police, while efforts to apprehend the remaining 12 are continuing.
According to DHA, the investigation centers on marriages that authorities claim were arranged for civil servants allegedly linked to the movement.
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.
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.
