At least 12 people were stopped along with 4 children while they were allegedly on their way to illegally cross Turkey’s Greek border from Edirne province, state-run Anadolu news agency (AA) reported on Friday.
Gendarmerie stopped two cars near Edirne’s Osmanlı village upon an earlier tipoff that people wanted for their alleged ties to the Gülen movement were bound for an illegal exit from Turkey to Greece. In the car were caught 9 people, 4 children and 3 people who are accused of migrant smuggling.
AA reported that the 9 alleged Gülen movement followers, among them a midwife, a teacher and a former military officer, who were all dismissed from their jobs, were detained along with the remaining three. Meanwhile, the children were handed over to their relatives.
Meanwhile, Turkish police on Saturday detained 13 people in the Salıpazarı district of Samsun province over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Thousands of people have fled Turkey due to a massive witch-hunt launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government against sympathizers of the Gülen movement in the wake of a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The government accuses the movement of masterminding the coup while the latter strongly denies involvement.
Some 150,000 people have lost their jobs, more than 126,000 have been detained and some 56,000 including academics, judges, doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, policemen and many from different backgrounds have been put in pre-trial detention since 2016 summer. Many tried to escape Turkey via illegal ways as the government cancelled their passports like thousands of others. (turkeypurge.com)
