{"id":36972,"date":"2026-03-10T15:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/36972\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T15:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T15:02:10","slug":"turkeys-top-court-finds-rights-violation-in-conviction-over-gulen-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/36972\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s top court finds rights violation in conviction over G\u00fclen links"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Photo: Turkey’s Constitutional Court<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court has ruled that the conviction of a woman accused of membership in the G\u00fclen movement violated the principle of legality in criminal law, saying the acts cited by lower courts did not clearly establish a criminal offense.<\/p>\n

According to a decision dated January 6, 2026, recently made public, the court reviewed the case of G\u00fclcan \u00c7elik, who had been convicted of membership in the faith-based G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n

The ruling found a violation of Article 38 of Turkey\u2019s constitution, which guarantees the principle of legality in criminal law. The court ordered that the case be sent back to a lower criminal court for retrial to remedy the violation.<\/p>\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan has targeted followers of the G\u00fclen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah G\u00fclen, 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 G\u00fclenist conspiracy and later designated the movement a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a failed coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused G\u00fclen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.<\/p>\n

\u00c7elik\u2019s conviction was based on several factors cited by prosecutors and accepted by the lower courts.<\/p>\n

These included allegations that she supervised student housing linked to the movement between 2009 and 2012, worked for about three years as a teacher at a private educational institution said to be affiliated with it, was a member of a union alleged to have ties to the network and had engaged in transactions with Bank Asya, a bank linked to the movement.<\/p>\n

Witness statements were also cited as part of the evidence against her.<\/p>\n

Lower courts evaluated these elements together and ruled that they demonstrated membership in the organization.<\/p>\n

The Constitutional Court, however, said the acts cited in the case did not sufficiently establish the \u201ccontinuity, intensity and diversity\u201d of activities required to prove membership in an illegal organization under Turkish law.<\/p>\n

The court also said it had not been shown that the actions attributed to \u00c7elik would reasonably have been understood by her as conduct that could lead to criminal liability.<\/p>\n

For those reasons, the court ruled that the conviction violated Article 38 of Turkey\u2019s constitution, which guarantees the principle of \u201clegality of crimes and punishments,\u201d meaning that individuals can only be punished for acts that were clearly defined as crimes under the law at the time they were committed.<\/p>\n

It said a retrial would be sufficient to address the breach. The court rejected \u00c7elik\u2019s request for material damages, citing insufficient documentation, but ruled that she should receive compensation for non-pecuniary damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Turkey’s Constitutional Court Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court has ruled that the conviction of a woman accused of membership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[422,423,425,426,21307,311,312,427,428,429,431,131,132,155],"class_list":{"0":"post-36972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-ak-party","9":"tag-akp","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-erdogan","12":"tag-gulcan-celik","13":"tag-gulen-movement","14":"tag-human-rights","15":"tag-justice","16":"tag-law","17":"tag-oppression","18":"tag-rule-of-law","19":"tag-stockholm","20":"tag-sweden","21":"tag-turkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116205489117251726","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}