Turkish police detained 21 people on Tuesday in two investigations into alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, including seven accused of providing financial assistance to prisoners’ families, the TRT haber state broadcaster reported.
The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for 25 people in the two investigations, with police continuing to search for four who remained at large.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, 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 Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the attempted coup or any terrorist activity.
The first investigation targeted 11 people accused of providing financial support to alleged members of the movement and engaging in unspecified ongoing activities associated with it. Seven were detained, while police were searching for the remaining four. The Bold Medya news website reported that the allegations also involved providing financial assistance to families of people in prison.
Turkish authorities have repeatedly targeted people accused of providing financial assistance to families affected by the crackdown on the movement.
In April police detained 42 people, most of them women, over assistance provided during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to families of people jailed or dismissed from their jobs over alleged Gülen links. A court subsequently ordered 24 of them jailed pending trial, while the remaining 18 were released under judicial supervision.
United Nations experts warned in October 2025 that people had reportedly been arrested over family relationships or lawful activities by relatives, including financial transactions, describing the practice as guilt by association that was inconsistent with the principle of individual responsibility.
The latest detentions follow another round of nationwide operations targeting alleged Gülen movement members. Authorities announced on Monday that 72 people had been detained across 32 provinces, with courts ordering 41 of them jailed pending trial.
In the second investigation, police detained all 14 people named in detention warrants during simultaneous raids across 10 provinces, including the Turkish capital of Ankara. Prosecutors accused them of participating in what authorities described as the movement’s clandestine network within public institutions. The investigation was conducted by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the counterterrorism department of the Ankara Police Department.
The prosecutor’s office did not specify what activities the 14 detainees allegedly carried out in public institutions or explain what ongoing activities were attributed to those targeted in the financial investigation. Details of the detainees’ questioning and custody status beyond their initial detention were not immediately available.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 127,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement, and authorities had initiated legal proceedings against 720,338 people since 2016, with 10,485 still in prison. Investigations or trials involving another 83,404 are still ongoing.
This article is republished from the Stockholm Center for Freedom.
