Turkish authorities have detained at least 218 people in three separate operations across the country in the last four days, targeting individuals accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish media reported.
The largest of the coordinated sweeps took place in 42 provinces on Tuesday, according to the interior ministry, leading to the detention of 169 people. Officials said the detainees were suspected of maintaining contact via payphones, using the encrypted messaging app ByLock or sharing content on social media that authorities labeled as propaganda. Some individuals were also accused of being part of the movement’s alleged “military and police network” or of providing the movement with financial support.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in December 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan 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 designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
In a separate operation on Monday, police detained 18 doctors in 10 provinces. Authorities allege the physicians had attended preparatory courses for the residency exam organized by individuals linked to the movement and had engaged in covert communications. The claims also cite financial ties to the now-defunct Bank Asya, which was associated with the group.
In İzmir 31 people were detained on Sunday as part of another investigation. According to the local prosecutor’s office, the suspects were identified through the alleged use of ByLock. Authorities also cited witness statements, digital records and claims that some suspects were active in what was described as the group’s “current structure,” provided financial support to the movement or shared content on social media praising Gülen.
ByLock, once widely available online, has been considered a secret tool of communication among supporters of the movement since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, despite the lack of any evidence that ByLock messages were related to the abortive putsch.
The so-called “payphone investigations” are based on call records. The prosecutors allege that a member of the Gülen movement used a single payphone to call all his contacts consecutively. Based on that assumption, when an alleged member of the movement is found in call records, it is assumed that other numbers called right before or after that call also belong to people with Gülen links. The authorities do not possess the content of the calls in question. The supposition of guilt is solely based on the order of the calls made from the phone.
The latest detentions come despite a landmark ruling from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in September 2023 that found the use of ByLock not to constitute a criminal offense. The Grand Chamber ruled in the case of former teacher Yüksel Yalçınkaya that the use of the ByLock application was not an offense in itself and did not constitute sufficient evidence for an arrest.
Since the coup attempt, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. There are currently 13,251 people in prison who are in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
