A Turkish court on Wednesday ordered the arrest of four people in Çanakkale province over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the state-run TRT Haber reported.
Police detained nine people, including six alleged members of the Gülen movement who were reportedly preparing to leave the country, on Gökçeada, an island in Çanakkale province in western Turkey. Three others accused of assisting them were also detained.
Five of those detained were released under judicial supervision. No further details were provided by authorities regarding the evidence cited in the arrests.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip 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 a 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.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted of 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.
