A court in İstanbul has convicted 19 defendants and acquitted 19 others in a case known as the “girls’ trial,” which was based on terrorism charges over routine religious and educational activities allegedly linked to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish Minute reported.
The İstanbul 24th High Criminal Court, presided over by Judge Şenol Kartal, issued prison sentences for 11 people on the charge of membership in a terrorist organization, with sentences ranging from six years, three months to seven years, six months.
The court also sentenced eight people to three years, one month, 15 days for aiding a terrorist organization.
The panel ordered the arrest of two defendants who were at large at the time of the ruling.
The court further ruled that there were no grounds to sentence one defendant, who was a cooperating witness.
A mother received a sentence of six years, three months while her daughter, a university law student, was acquitted.
The trial involves women and girls, including high school students, accused of terrorism due to their alleged affiliation with the faith-based Gülen movement.
The 529-page indictment cites more than 100 acts as evidence.
Those include Quran study, tutoring, attending social gatherings and living in shared apartments. Many of the accused were detained in May 2024 during early morning police raids.
None of the acts involve weapons or violence.
The legal basis for the charges is Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code, which covers membership in an armed terrorist organization.
Rights advocates say Turkish courts have applied Article 314 to nonviolent association, religious practice and ordinary social life.
The case has drawn international monitors from European and American groups who attended earlier hearings and issued reports on due process concerns.
Observers previously documented prolonged absences by a member of the three-judge panel, sharp exchanges between the bench and defense and interruptions of defendants during statements.
The prosecutor submitted a final opinion on June 27 seeking prison terms for all 41 defendants, prompting lawyers to criticize the opinion for echoing the indictment without proving the elements of a crime.
Defense statements during recent sessions emphasized that there are no guns, no violence and no chain of command in the file.
Defense teams also said chat messages cited as evidence were about rent and bills and show that student apartments were paid for by the tenants and not financed by any organization.
The verdict will likely be appealed at a higher court.
The case is part of a long-running crackdown on real or perceived members of the Gülen movement, inspired by Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic cleric who died in October 2024 after years of living in exile in the US.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him 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 began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
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 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.
