Turkish authorities have detained 71 people in an ongoing crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Monday.
Yerlikaya said on X that suspects have been taken into custody in police operations across 27 provinces, including Ankara, Antalya, İstanbul and İzmir.
Yerlikaya said the suspects were identified as members of the movement and had previously worked for companies linked to it. Detainees were also accused of using the group’s secret communication methods and of playing roles in what authorities describe as the movement’s covert structure inside the police department.
Turkish 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.
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.
