A former teacher imprisoned with her 2-year-old daughter over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement was released on Monday, nearly nine months after the Constitutional Court ruled that her rights had been violated, the TR724 news website reported.
In its November 2025 ruling, the Constitutional Court found that the lower courts had failed to adequately explain in reasoned decisions how Emine Sarıoğlu’s lawful activities constituted evidence of membership in a terrorist organization. It ruled that her right to a reasoned judgment had been violated and ordered a retrial.
Nearly nine months later, the Malatya 1st High Criminal Court accepted Sarıoğlu’s request for a retrial, suspended the execution of her sentence and ordered her release. She was released from Sincan Prison on Monday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of 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 the 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.
Sarıoğlu was sentenced to more than six years in prison by the same court. The court based her conviction on depositing money in the now-closed Bank Asya, her employment for 18 months at a private tutoring center affiliated with the movement, the collection of donations, a magazine subscription, attendance at religious gatherings and listening to recorded sermons.
In 2023 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a landmark case that convictions based on ByLock use and other alleged Gülen-linked activities, such as having an account at a movement-affiliated bank, violated the rights to a fair trial, no punishment without law and freedom of association.
Sarıoğlu’s conviction became final on November 30, 2023, after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld it. She subsequently sought a retrial based on the ECtHR’s landmark judgment, but the Malatya 1st High Criminal Court rejected her request in October 2024.
The execution of her sentence was postponed for 18 months because of her pregnancy at the time. When the postponement expired, Sarıoğlu was imprisoned on October 27, 2025, along with her daughter.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 127,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 10,485 still in prison and legal proceedings ongoing against 83,404 individuals.
