Turkish police on Friday detained two women whose fathers are imprisoned in cases tied to the government’s crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement after prosecutors cited help they received to study in Germany as part of a terrorism investigation.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of Muslim 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 the 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.
Esma Batmaz was detained in İstanbul and Hilal Köseoğlu in the southwestern province of Muğla during raids at about 5:40 a.m. Prosecutors issued detention warrants for Yakup Aykın, who has lived abroad since 2016, and Sami Yılmaz, who left Turkey in July, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The investigation was conducted with police counterterrorism and intelligence units and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said.
Prosecutors accused Aykın, who lives in Mannheim, Germany, of arranging education in Germany for children of people prosecuted or imprisoned over alleged Gülen links through an education consultancy. They also accused him of passing information between prisoners and people abroad.
The prosecutor’s statement referred to Batmaz, Köseoğlu and Yılmaz identified only by their initials as students who received the education assistance. It cited no act by Batmaz or Köseoğlu apart from receiving that help and did not specify which offense the two women are suspected of committing.
Police seized digital material during searches in İstanbul and Muğla, according to Anadolu. It was not clear whether the women had been questioned or had access to lawyers.
The prosecutor’s office described both detainees through their fathers.
Esma Batmaz’s father, Kemal Batmaz, was among the civilians convicted in the Akıncı Airbase trial concerning the July 15, 2016, coup attempt. Turkey’s top appeals court upheld his convictions in 2023. Batmaz denied taking part in the coup.
Hilal Köseoğlu’s father, former judge Bilal Köseoğlu, is serving an eight-year sentence following his conviction on a charge of membership in the movement. He was dismissed from the judiciary by an emergency decree after the failed coup.
Aid and family ties used in terrorism cases
The operation follows years of investigations in which Turkish prosecutors have treated assistance to people affected by the crackdown on the Gülen movement as evidence of terrorism-related activity.
A court in January sentenced a man to seven-and-a-half years in prison after prosecutors accused him of transferring about 62,000 lira, then worth $1,430, to families of prisoners and dismissed public servants.
Police in April detained 42 people, most of them women, over aid delivered during Ramadan to families affected by the purge. A nationwide operation in 2022 led to the detention of at least 599 people accused of receiving or distributing donations, food and other assistance.
United Nations experts warned in an October 2025 communication that Turkey was criminalizing lawful conduct by students and people with family or social ties to the movement. They said family relationships, international study, school choices and routine funds transfers were being treated as evidence of guilt without proof of violence or support for an attack.
The experts described this approach as guilt by association, which conflicts with the principle of individual responsibility. They also warned that Turkey’s terrorism laws allow detention without proof of violent intent, incitement or operational support.
Some 150,000 people were dismissed from public institutions, including Turkey’s cadre of judges and prosecutors, and the Turkish Armed Forces over alleged links to terrorist organizations for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
According to figures announced by Justice Minister Akın Gürlek, authorities have initiated legal proceedings against 720,338 people over alleged Gülen links since 2016 and secured the conviction of 127,102. Investigations or trials involving another 83,404 people are ongoing, while 10,485 people accused or convicted of involvement in the coup attempt or membership in the movement are still in prison.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
