Metin Can Yılmaz, a Turkish human rights lawyer who was sentenced to over 12 years in prison on alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement and released on Friday after seven years behind bars, was arrested again on Monday, the TR724 news website reported.
Yılmaz was released after the Supreme Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling. However, Ankara prosecutors on Saturday opposed the release on grounds that he posed a flight risk and demanded his rearrest.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement after a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Yılmaz’s wife, Dilara, claimed that the decision for rearrest was motivated by his family links to a high-profile political prisoner.
“The reason for this attitude is clear: After all, he has been labeled as the son-in-law of former intelligence officer Enver Altaylı. We will not forgive this wrongdoing and will seek justice in court,” she said.
Altaylı, a 73-year-old former diplomat and former employee of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), was also arrested over his alleged links to the movement as part of Turkish government’s massive post-coup crackdown.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. Over 130,000 public servants, including hundreds of academics, 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.
Altaylı had started to work for MİT in 1968.
