A Turkish man deported from Germany in December has been jailed pending trial in Ankara for alleged ties to the Gülen movement, according to documents seen by Turkish Minute.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan 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 designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Nusret Taş, 35, was arrested on December 20, one day after being deported to Turkey following the rejection of his asylum claim by German authorities.
Turkish prosecutors accuse him of membership in the Gülen movement.
According to the indictment seen by Turkish Minute, the case against Taş is based on several factors: his use of the encrypted messaging app Bylock, which Turkish courts say was exclusive to members of the Gülen movement; witness testimonies from individuals already under prosecution; and financial transactions with institutions tied to the group, including a now-defunct account at Bank Asya and money transfers from a Gülen-linked firm.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government accepted such activities as having an account at the Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application, which was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play; and subscribing to the Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with members of the movement as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
A landmark ruling from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in September 2023 found that the use of ByLock did not constitute a criminal offense. The court ruled in the case of former teacher Yüksel Yalçınkaya that the use of the ByLock application was not an offense in itself and was not sufficient evidence for arrest.
The Strasbourg court also ruled in other cases that use of ByLock or having an account at Bank Asya did not constitute criminal offenses.
Taş worked as a dormitory supervisor at a Gülen-linked facility in Ankara before a coup attempt in 2016. He severed overt ties to the movement after the failed coup, when the dormitory was shut down by authorities.
Between 2016 and 2018, Taş worked in private-sector accounting roles. Authorities later flagged money transfers totaling more than 28,000 Turkish lira from a business they blacklisted as Gülen-linked as additional evidence of affiliation.
In 2019, facing an arrest warrant, he fled Turkey via the Evros River and entered Greece with the help of smugglers. He then traveled to Germany and applied for asylum there. He lived in shelters for over a year before settling near Frankfurt, where he worked as an accounting clerk until his deportation.
Taş’s asylum request was ultimately denied. After exhausting legal appeals, he was deported to Turkey and taken into custody at Ankara Esenboğa Airport. He was charged under Article 314/2 of the Turkish Penal Code, which covers membership in armed groups.
His legal team argues that his involvement with the Gülen movement was limited, and that he fled the country out of fear of prosecution, not because he played a significant role. He has invoked Article 221, known as the “effective remorse” clause, which allows for reduced sentencing in terrorism-related cases if the accused cooperates or renounces prior affiliations.
Turkish authorities routinely rely on witness statements as evidence to identify and prosecute members of the group.
The defendants in trials of alleged movement members are often encouraged to benefit from the country’s repentance laws allowing for reduced penalties in exchange for denouncing other members of the group.
In recent years, there have also been many reports about the alleged use of torture and ill-treatment in custody to coerce detainees into becoming informants and incriminating others.
Taş remains in pretrial detention under the order of the Ankara 1st Criminal Judgeship of Peace.
His case underscores the risks outlined in findings by the Turkey Tribunal, a civil society initiative documenting human rights violations in Turkey, highlighting how individuals with past ties — however limited — to the Gülen movement continue to face arrest, prosecution and social exclusion upon return.
Despite serving no prison sentence before his deportation, Taş was taken into custody within hours of landing in Turkey and now faces trial based on evidence previously deemed unlawful by the ECtHR.
Turkish Minute has reached out to Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and the Federal Foreign Office for comment on the deportation and is awaiting their responses.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants as well as 24,706 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
In recent years more than 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement. There are at least 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism charges in Gülen-linked trials.
Between June 2023 and June 2024 alone, Turkish authorities carried out a total of 5,543 police operations and arrested 1,595 people linked to the movement.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
