Turkish authorities detained 72 people over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement in recent operations, with courts ordering 41 of them jailed pending trial, the İlke TV news website reported Monday, citing the Interior Ministry.
Gendarmes carried out the operations across 32 provinces, including İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Diyarbakır, under the coordination of prosecutors and the force’s counterterrorism department. Legal procedures were continuing for the remaining 31 people, the ministry said, without specifying their custody status.
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 attempted coup or any terrorist activity.
The ministry’s allegations included continuing activities on behalf of the movement, maintaining contact with people it described as movement coordinators, providing financial support to charities it alleged were affiliated with the movement and posting content on social media that it characterized as terrorist propaganda.
The official statement did not specify which allegations applied to which detainees, identify the charities or describe the social media posts cited as evidence.
The ministry also said gendarmes seized documents and digital materials during the operations, without detailing their contents.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 127,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the movement and authorities had initiated legal proceedings against 720,338 people since 2016, with 10,485 still in prison. Investigations or trials involving another 83,404 are still ongoing.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
