One of the architects of Turkey’s penal code has called for a special legal arrangement to allow retrials for people convicted on terrorism charges over alleged links to the Gülen movement, arguing that those who did not commit concrete criminal acts should not be labeled as terrorists.
In an X post on Monday, Prof. Dr. İzzet Özgenç, a criminal law scholar who helped draft the Turkish Penal Code, which entered into force in 2005, said people with ties to the movement should not be branded as terrorists if they neither committed a specific crime nor prepared to commit one.
“Labeling people as terrorists without a concrete criminal act is incompatible with the principles of justice,” he wrote.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Özgenç argued that the problems arising from judicial practices since the 2016 coup attempt do not require an amnesty law, which he said would not distinguish between those who committed crimes and those who did not. Instead, he called for a legislative amendment that would enable retrials for those convicted of membership in an armed terrorist organization over alleged ties to the movement.
Turkey experienced a controversial military coup attempt on the night of July 15, 2016, which, according to many, was a false flag operation aimed at entrenching the authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by rooting out dissidents and eliminating powerful actors such as the military in his desire for absolute power.
Former Supreme Court of Appeals member Hüsamettin Uğur supported Özgenç’s view, saying amnesty applies to those who are guilty of crimes and that many people prosecuted since the coup attempt have no connection to terrorism.
He added that rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) have reinforced concerns over some of the convictions. However, he said that for individuals who have been unable to apply to the European court or to Turkey’s Constitutional Court, a legal provision allowing retrials may be necessary.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under active investigation nearly a decade later.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
