Turkish police have detained 20 people in raids across six provinces on Tuesday over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the Velev news website reported.
The İstanbul-centered operation was carried out simultaneously in the provinces of İstanbul, İzmir, Kocaeli, Gaziantep, Kayseri and Kırıkkale. Those detained included five current public servants, four former public servants who had been dismissed from their jobs over alleged links to the Gülen movement and 11 others.
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 him 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.
Police allege those detained had contacts with members of the movement and that their names appeared in digital material obtained from a secret witness. Authorities also cited activity in accounts at the now-defunct Bank Asya, which was shut down by the government over links to the movement, and payphone records as evidence of alleged links to the movement.
The payphone evidence is based on call records rather than the content of the calls. Prosecutors allege that a member of the Gülen movement used the same payphone to call contacts in succession and treat numbers called immediately before or after a known or alleged movement member as evidence of links to the group.
Police seized digital materials during searches of the detainees’ homes. The 20 remained in police custody while their processing continued, and there was no immediate information on whether prosecutors would seek court-ordered pretrial detention.
