The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday found rights violations in 947 more cases involving terrorism convictions handed down in Turkey after the failed coup of July 2016, continuing a series of rulings over systemic flaws in the prosecution of people accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
In three separate judgments issued unanimously, the court found violations involving 591 applicants in Ünal and Others v. Türkiye, 11 applicants in Korkmaz and Others v. Türkiye and 345 applicants in Parun and Others v. Türkiye.
In Ünal and Parun, the court found violations of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, citing shortcomings in the applicants’ ability to defend themselves against the evidence used to secure their convictions.
In Korkmaz, it found a violation of Article 7, which guarantees the principle of no punishment without law.
In all three cases, the court said the finding of a violation was sufficient compensation for any non-pecuniary damage and found no need to examine the applicants’ remaining complaints.
The rulings follow the ECtHR’s 2023 Grand Chamber decision in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye, which identified systemic problems in terrorism convictions based on alleged use of the encrypted messaging application ByLock and other activities associated with the Gülen movement.
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 Erdoğan 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.
ByLock was an encrypted messaging application that Turkish courts came to treat as evidence of membership in the Gülen movement after the coup attempt.
Turkey’s courts accepted the government’s view that the app had been created for the movement’s internal communications and, in many cases, treated proven use of it as sufficient evidence of membership in an armed terrorist organization.
The ECtHR applied the Yalçınkaya principles to 239 applicants in Demirhan and Others v. Türkiye in July 2025, finding that Turkish courts had treated alleged ByLock use in a categorical manner and failed to establish individual criminal responsibility.
In December 2025, the court found violations in cases involving another 2,420 applicants, again criticizing the treatment of ByLock use as sufficient evidence of membership in an armed terrorist organization without adequate examination of individual intent and conduct.
The court ruled in 893 more cases in June, relying on the same line of case law.
In Yalçınkaya, the Grand Chamber found violations in the case of a former teacher convicted of membership in an armed terrorist organization based largely on alleged ByLock use, an account at the now-closed Bank Asya and membership in a union and association later shut down by emergency decrees.
The court said Turkish judges had treated alleged ByLock use as sufficient, in principle, to establish membership in an armed terrorist organization without proving the required criminal intent or examining the defendant’s individual circumstances. It described the problem as systemic and noted that thousands of similar applications were already pending before the court.
The Strasbourg court has also stressed the need to establish individual criminal responsibility in cases involving activities linked to the movement.
In May, the Grand Chamber found a violation in Şaban Yasak v. Türkiye, ruling that Turkish courts had failed to establish that Yasak knew of the movement’s alleged criminal aims or intentionally participated in a terrorist organization.
Turkish legal scholars later called on courts to apply the Yalçınkaya and Yasak judgments consistently, arguing that activities that were lawful at the time cannot by themselves establish membership in a terrorist organization.
Since the coup attempt, Turkish authorities have investigated more than 720,000 people over alleged Gülen links and convicted more than 127,000, according to figures announced by Justice Minister Akın Gürlek in July.
Around 130,000 civil servants were also dismissed by emergency decree during the post-coup purge, including judges, prosecutors, teachers, academics and police officers.
Operations have continued against alleged members of the movement a decade after the coup attempt. Gürlek said 2,451 people had been detained in 1,065 operations in the first six months of 2026.
Final ECtHR judgments are legally binding on Turkey, with their implementation supervised by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.
Turkey continues to account for the largest share of cases pending before the Strasbourg court. Court data showed that 23,050 applications against Turkey were pending at the end of May, representing more than 40 percent of the court’s total caseload.
Turkish officials have rejected the ECtHR’s criticism of the post-coup prosecutions, saying the measures were necessary to dismantle what the government describes as a clandestine organization embedded in state institutions.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
