The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday found violations in 893 more applications from Turkey, extending its case law on systemic defects in terrorism convictions of people accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish Minute reported.
The judgments are the latest in a series of rulings that followed the court’s 2023 Grand Chamber judgment in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey, in which the court said Turkey’s judiciary had created a systemic problem by using broad and automatic reasoning in terrorism cases.
The Gülen movement has been the main target of Turkey’s crackdown since a failed coup on July 15, 2016.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the US-based 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 later 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 Turkey’s 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 more than 24,000 people, while another 58,000 remain under active investigation nearly a decade later.
In the June 23 decisions the ECtHR found violations in three groups of applications concerning people convicted of membership in an armed terrorist organization over alleged links to the movement.
In Kılıçarslan and Others v. Turkey, involving 595 applicants, the court found violations of Article 6 and Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair trial, while Article 7 bars punishment without law.
In Çalı and Others v. Turkey, involving 264 applicants, the court found a violation of the right to a fair trial. In Dönmez and Others v. Turkey, involving 34 applicants, it found a violation of the principle that there can be no punishment without law.
The rulings show that the Strasbourg court is treating Yalçınkaya as a leading judgment for thousands of similar files stemming from Turkey’s post-coup crackdown. The latest decisions brought the number of applicants for whom the court has found violations under the Yalçınkaya line of case law to 3,554, according to lawyer Nurullah Albayrak, who has tracked the follow-up rulings.
In Yalçınkaya the Grand Chamber found that Turkish courts had violated the rights of a former teacher convicted of terrorism based on alleged use of an encrypted messaging app named ByLock, an account at the now-closed Bank Asya and membership in a union and an association later shut down by emergency decrees.
The court said Turkish courts had treated ByLock evidence in a general and automatic way, effectively using alleged use of the encrypted messaging app as proof of membership in an armed terrorist organization without proving individual intent, conduct and responsibility.
The Grand Chamber said the issue was systemic, noting that about 8,500 similar applications were pending before the court and that Turkish authorities had identified around 100,000 ByLock users.
The latest rulings also cite Demirhan and Others v. Turkey, a 2025 judgment in which the court applied the Yalçınkaya principles to 239 applicants, as well as Şaban Yasak v. Turkey, a Grand Chamber judgment delivered on May 5, 2026.
In Şaban Yasak the ECtHR found that Turkish courts had failed to show how the applicant’s earlier lawful activities in the movement’s educational network proved that he knew of terrorist aims, intended to be part of a terrorist organization or contributed to such an organization.
The reference to Şaban Yasak broadens the importance of Tuesday’s judgments beyond the technical handling of ByLock evidence. It places them in a larger line of case law criticizing Turkey’s use of broad terrorism charges against people accused of Gülen links.
The court did not award non-pecuniary damages in the cases, saying the finding of a violation was sufficient. It indicated that reopening domestic proceedings would in principle be the most appropriate remedy if carried out in line with the Strasbourg judgments.
Under Turkey’s Code of Criminal Procedure, a final ECtHR judgment finding a rights violation can serve as grounds for a request for retrial.
Human rights lawyer Ufuk Yeşil said on X that the Dönmez and Kılıçarslan judgments meant the court had found Article 7 violations for 629 people in a single day.
“There is no previous example of an Article 7 violation being found for 629 people in a single day,” Yeşil said, adding that the court had found Article 7 violations for about 100 people in total over 64 years before the Turkey cases.
Yeşil called on Turkish courts to apply the principles set out in Yalçınkaya and Şaban Yasak and to stop insisting on convictions based on reasoning the European court has rejected.
Turkish courts have relied in many cases on alleged ByLock use, deposits at Bank Asya, union membership, attendance at religious discussions or work at institutions later closed by emergency decrees.
Rights groups and defense lawyers say these acts were lawful when they took place and were later recast as evidence of terrorism through broad interpretations of criminal law.
The European court has said national courts must show an individual’s intent and conduct rather than treating alleged links, app use or lawful activity as automatic proof of membership in a terrorist organization.
The June 23 rulings are expected to strengthen retrial requests from people convicted in similar cases and add pressure on Turkish courts to comply with the Yalçınkaya line of judgments.
