UN special rapporteurs have said Turkey’s designation of the faith-based Gülen movement as a terrorist organization fails to meet due process standards and does not meet the legal definition of terrorism, warning that Ankara’s broader pattern of unjustifiable criminalization of the movement may amount to crimes against humanity.
In a 21-page letter dated October 8 and recently made public, six UN special rapporteurs and two UN working groups said Turkey has been systematically misusing counterterrorism laws against Gülen movement supporters.
They raised serious concerns about the treatment of individuals accused of links to the movement, questioning Turkey’s compliance with its obligations under international human rights law. The rapporteurs cited arbitrary arrests and detention; restrictions on the right to education and the right to highest attainable standard of health; deprivation of liberty; denial of the right to a fair trial; and threats against and psychological pressure on minors during detention or interrogation that may amount to ill-treatment or torture.
“We must reiterate our concerns relating to the misuse of counter-terrorism laws against individuals suspected of affiliation with the Gülen Movement in relation to legitimate conduct that does not contribute to terrorist violence,” the rapporteurs said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting 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.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
A recent study based on justice ministry statistics revealed that a total of 3,093,084 people in Turkey have been investigated for terrorism-related offenses since the coup attempt, with 527,100 convicted.
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy Ana Brian Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on the right to education Farida Shaheed and the working group members cited two police operations on May 7, 2024 and May 6, 2025.
The rapporteurs said the raids, detaining 55 and 208 people, respectively, reflect a wider pattern of arbitrary detention of alleged Gülen movement affiliates, with many politically motivated charges and unprecedented targeting of minors and young women, including mothers and pregnant women.
Dawn raids on girls in İstanbul
The first case centers on what has become known in Turkey as the “Girls’ Trial,” a terrorism case against 41 defendants that grew out of a May 7, 2024 raid on student apartments in İstanbul.
According to the letter, police opened a terrorism investigation on December 19, 2023, into 17 people, mainly female university students, based on secret “reliable sources.” Judges then approved wiretaps and physical surveillance of students, their homes and even children as young as 12 and 16, on suspicion of “membership in an armed terrorist organization.”
On May 7, 2024, on orders from the İstanbul chief public prosecutor, police carried out coordinated dawn raids. Officers detained 40 adults, mostly women and university students. The child protection branch at the same time “apprehended” 15 minors aged 13 to 17, many of them the children of those detainees.
Authorities described the operation on minors as “information gathering.” The UN experts say the girls were taken from their homes in handcuffs, driven to police stations, sent for forensic medical exams and treated throughout as criminal suspects. They say the youngsters were questioned based on secret surveillance, denied access to lawyers and family members and threatened and left without food for long periods while social workers failed to intervene.
Adult detainees spent four days in custody and faced similar pressure, including deprivation of food, psychological abuse and restrictions on contact with the outside world and with other detainees, according to the letter.
On May 10, 2024, prosecutors sent 33 detainees to a criminal court of peace and requested their arrest. The court jailed 28 people on terrorism charges, including “membership in an armed terrorist organization,” based on activities such as volunteer English and religious tutoring and social events with other students.
Ten of those jailed were university students between 19 and 25 years of age who were in the middle of exam season. Some mothers and sisters of the detained minors were also arrested, along with people who had serious health problems.
Prosecutors later filed a 529-page indictment that, according to the letter, did not contain material evidence of violence. It treated voluntary tutoring, study circles and lawful work by lawyers as criminal support for the Gülen movement.
On September 18, 2025, the İstanbul 24th High Criminal Court convicted 19 defendants and acquitted 19 of terrorism charges based on their religious and social activities.
The UN experts say the convictions rest on “lawful association, family background, and religious observance,” not proof of violent intent or support for terrorist attacks.
Nationwide student sweep in 47 provinces
The second operation described in the letter took place on May 6, 2025, and was directed by the Gaziantep Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. Police counterterrorism and intelligence units carried out raids in 47 provinces and took 208 people into custody. Many were female university students with no previous criminal record, the experts say.
Interior ministry statements presented the operation as a major blow against the Gülen movement’s alleged “current structure.” Official social media posts carried photos of handcuffed detainees and declared that the “structure of the organization was deciphered” before any court ruling.
Most detainees face accusations under Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code, which punishes membership in an armed terrorist organization.
The letter says people were questioned over travel for tourism or study, including Erasmus student exchanges, over shared rental payments among roommates, over the use of secure messaging apps such as Signal and over family ties to people who had been fired or convicted after 2016.
The investigation relies heavily on the word of one anonymous witness and on the content of a USB stick said to contain audio and text about travel, housing and student life abroad. The experts say there is no evidence that the data on the device directly implicates those detained and no clear information on how the authorities obtained or preserved the device.
During the first phase of detention, many suspects were denied access to lawyers for 24 hours, the letter says. Families did not know where their relatives were held or received misleading information. Lawyers were pushed out of police stations or prevented from seeing clients. Some defense lawyers were pressured to sign pre-written notes, while detainees were asked to sign statements without legal representation.
The case files were placed under secrecy orders under Article 153 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which blocked defense teams from seeing the evidence behind the arrests. Courts in Gaziantep ordered pretrial detention in decisions that used standard wording about the seriousness of the offense and risk of flight, without individual assessment, according to the letter.
UN says raids show arbitrary detention, abuse of terrorism laws
The experts say both operations violate Turkey’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, all treaties that Turkey has ratified.
They argue that many arrests are arbitrary because they are based on “formulaic” reasons and do not link individual suspects to genuine criminal or terrorist activity. Police and courts treat family ties, shared housing, ordinary financial transfers, union membership and school choices as proof of guilt, which the experts call “guilt by association” that contravenes the principle of individual responsibility.
The letter singles out Article 314 of the penal code and Turkey’s Counterterrorism Law as overly broad and vague. It says these laws allow authorities to punish people without proof of violent intent, incitement or operational support for attacks, which violates the rule that crimes must be clearly defined and foreseeable in advance.
The experts say the denial of timely access to lawyers, the use of anonymous witnesses, secret case files and preliminary interviews without legal safeguards breach fair trial rights. They note that these problems are even more serious when minors are involved because international law says children may be deprived of liberty only as a last resort and for the shortest period of time.
Part of a wider pattern since 2016 coup attempt
It notes that previous interior ministry figures show more than 332,884 people detained for alleged Gülen links between 2016 and 2022 and more than 702,000 investigated under Article 314 by mid-2024.
Between 2017 and 2024 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued at least 24 opinions finding that detentions of alleged Gülen supporters in Turkey were arbitrary. In some of those decisions the group warned that the pattern of arbitrary detention, if widespread or systematic, could amount to crimes against humanity under international law.
The European Court of Human Rights has also ruled against Turkey in group cases concerning alleged Gülen members.
The rapporteurs also recalled that in a landmark judgment in September 2023, the court held in the case of Yüksel Yalçınkaya that conviction for membership in a terrorist organization based mainly on the use of the ByLock encrypted messaging app violated the right to a fair trial.
Since the coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government has accepted such activities as having an account at the now-shuttered Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play; and subscribing to the now-shut-down Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with members of the movement as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
International and human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized Turkey’s counterterrorism framework as a tool for political repression, warning that many individuals have been prosecuted merely for having social or professional ties to the Gülen movement or for exercising their right to free expression. They continue to call for clearer definitions of terrorism in the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and the Counterterrorism Law (TMK) to reduce arbitrariness.
(Stockholm Center for Freedom with reporting by Turkish Minute)
