{"id":6593,"date":"2026-02-09T15:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/6593\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:06:08","slug":"turkey-detains-63-arrests-41-people-over-alleged-gulen-links-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/6593\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey detains 63, arrests 41 people over alleged G\u00fclen links: minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Turkish police in the last two weeks have detained 63 people and arrested 41 of them over alleged links to the faith-based G\u00fclen movement, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Monday.<\/p>\n

Yerlikaya posted on X that suspects have been taken into custody in police operations across 29 provinces, including Ankara, Antalya, \u0130stanbul and \u0130zmir. The minister said four of the suspects were released under judicial supervision and that legal procedures for the remaining suspects are ongoing.<\/p>\n

FET\u00d6’ye y\u00f6nelik 29 ilde Jandarmam\u0131z taraf\u0131ndan son 2 haftad\u0131r d\u00fczenlenen operasyonlar\u0131m\u0131zda 63 \u015f\u00fcpheliyi yakalad\u0131k\u2757 <\/p>\n

\ud83d\udd3bFET\u00d6 ter\u00f6r \u00f6rg\u00fct\u00fcn\u00fcn “G\u00fcncel Yap\u0131lanmas\u0131” i\u00e7erisinde faaliyet y\u00fcr\u00fcten,
\ud83d\udd3bAnkes\u00f6rl\u00fc telefonlarla \u00f6rg\u00fct i\u00e7erisinde sorumlu \u015fah\u0131slar ile irtibatta bulunan,\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/XaU6pTW8gc<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) February 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

The suspects were accused of providing financial support to the movement and posting propaganda content on social media for the movement.<\/p>\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan has been targeting 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.<\/p>\n

Dismissing the investigations as a G\u00fclenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdo\u011fan began to target the movement\u2019s 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 G\u00fclen of masterminding.<\/p>\n

The detainees were also accused of contacting members of the movement via pay phones and using ByLock, an encrypted messaging application that was widely available on Apple\u2019s App Store and Google Play.<\/p>\n

The so-called \u201cpayphone investigations\u201d are based on call records. The prosecutors allege that a member of the G\u00fclen movement used a single payphone to consecutively call all his contacts. Based on that assumption, when an alleged member of the movement is found in call records, it is assumed that other numbers called right before or after the primary call also belong to people with G\u00fclen links. The authorities do not possess the content of the calls in question.\u00a0The supposition of guilt is solely based on the order of the calls made from the phone.<\/p>\n

Turkish authorities have considered ByLock to be a secret tool of communication among supporters of the G\u00fclen movement since the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, despite a lack of evidence that ByLock messages were related to the abortive putsch.<\/p>\n

Although the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has in many cases made clear that use of the ByLock messaging app does not constitute a criminal offense, detentions and arrests of individuals continue in Turkey for their alleged use of the ByLock application.<\/p>\n

According to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, more than 126,000 people have been\u00a0convicted<\/a>\u00a0of 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.<\/p>\n

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other G\u00fclen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.<\/p>\n