A former Turkish prime minister, a culture minister and an opposition lawmaker called for the retrial of thousands convicted in the crackdown that followed a failed coup in 2016 after the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Turkey had violated fundamental legal principles by convicting a man over activities that were lawful at the time.
Speaking at a parliamentary group meeting of his opposition Future Party (GP) in Ankara on Wednesday, Ahmet Davutoğlu — who served as prime minister between 2014 and 2016 and was one of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s closest allies during the failed coup — called for what he described as “comprehensive social reconciliation” ahead of the 10th anniversary of the abortive putsch next year.
He said people should not continue to face punishment for sending children to schools, depositing money in banks or joining unions that were legally recognized by the Turkish state at the time.
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 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.
Since the coup attempt, the Turkish government has accepted such activities as having an account at the now-shuttered Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play; and subscribing to the now-shut-down 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.
“You opened those schools. A bank inauguration ceremony was attended by the president himself,” Davutoğlu said. “Nothing happens to the people around you, but you persecute ordinary Anatolian families and the children of people dismissed by emergency decrees. This cannot be accepted.”
Davutoğlu also called for the reinstatement of acquitted public employees dismissed under emergency decrees issued after the coup attempt and said lower-ranking soldiers prosecuted after the failed coup should receive fair new trials.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency (OHAL) that remained in effect until July 19, 2018. During this period, the government carried out a purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight by issuing a number of government decrees, known as KHKs. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as more than 24,000 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.
Ertuğrul Günay, who served as Turkey’s culture and tourism minister from 2007 to 2013 in governments led by then-prime minister and current president Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the ruling showed that many post-coup terrorism convictions lacked legal basis and required retrials.”
Günay said on X that Turkey’s Justice Ministry should comply with the ruling and revisit convictions handed down in similar cases.
Günay also cited constitutional protections against retroactive punishment, saying the ruling reminded Turkish courts that “no one can be punished for acts that were not considered crimes at the time they were committed.”
Mustafa Yeneroğlu, a former AKP lawmaker who once chaired the Turkish Parliament’s Human Rights Inquiry Committee before joining the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), said on X that the ruling exposed broader structural problems in Turkey’s post-coup judiciary.
“The core message of the court is very clear,” Yeneroğlu wrote on X. “Merely associating a person with a religious community, alleging participation in certain activities, or relying on witness statements is not sufficient for conviction of membership in an armed terrorist organization.”
He said the ruling emphasized that prosecutors must prove a defendant knowingly and willingly supported violent or criminal aims, supported by individualized and concrete evidence.
Yeneroğlu also argued that the judgment could have broad implications for thousands of similar cases still pending before Turkish courts. He called on the Turkish Parliament to adopt legislation enabling retrials and remedies for rights violations.
The calls followed a May 5 ruling by the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR in the case of Yasak v. Turkey, which found that Turkey violated the principle of “no punishment without law” and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment in its conviction of Şaban Yasak on terrorism charges.
Yasak, 39, was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement and held for years in overcrowded prison conditions.
Yasak’s conviction was based on witness statements about his alleged role in the movement’s student network before 2014, his account at the now-closed, Gülen-linked Bank Asya, his employment at a private tutoring center considered affiliated with the movement, membership in two associations allegedly tied to the movement and mobile phone records allegedly showing contact with another suspect in a Gülen-linked investigation.
The Yasak ruling adds to a series of ECtHR judgments faulting Turkey’s post-coup prosecutions. In 2023 the court’s Grand Chamber ruled in Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey that Turkey violated the rights to a fair trial, no punishment without law and freedom of association in a conviction based heavily on alleged use of the ByLock messaging app, saying the problems were “systemic” and noting that about 8,500 similar applications were pending. In July 2025 the court reached similar findings in Demirhan and Others v. Turkey, a case involving 239 applicants convicted of membership in the Gülen movement and said thousands of similar cases were still accumulating before the court. The court has also issued rulings in post-coup detention cases involving judges, civil servants and others accused of Gülen links.
Turkey has faced repeated criticism from European institutions and rights groups over delays and failures in implementing some ECtHR rulings, particularly in politically sensitive post-coup cases.
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.
