Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained 76 people in two separate operations targeting people accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, Turkish media reported.
The Interior Ministry said on Tuesday that 69 suspects were apprehended in coordinated gendarmerie raids conducted across 33 provinces.
Forty-three of the suspects were arrested pending trial, while seven others were released under judicial supervision. Legal proceedings for the remaining detainees were ongoing.
The coordinated operations were carried out by provincial gendarmerie units working with the Gendarmerie General Command’s counterterrorism department and local prosecutors.
Authorities alleged that the suspects were active within the movement’s current network, maintained contact with senior members, provided financial support to organizations affiliated with the group, and spread the movement’s propaganda on social media.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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 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.
In the second operation, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for seven suspects as part of an investigation into allegations that questions for the 2014 Military High Schools Entrance Exam were leaked to members of the movement. Police detained the suspects.
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.
