Turkey ordered detention of 68 people over alleged Gülen links in a week

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish prosecutors have over the past week ordered the detention of 68 people due to alleged links to the Gülen movement, Stockholm Center for Freedom reported citing local media.

The public prosecutor’s office in Çankırı on Tuesday issued detention warrants for 11 individuals. Suspects were accused of providing financial assistance to the families of people who were jailed due to their alleged links to the movement.

As part of an investigation launched the same day by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, detention warrants have been issued for 21 people on accusations that they used the ByLock messaging app, once widely available online and considered by the government to be a tool of secret communication among supporters of the movement. Turkish police have detained 20 of the suspects in operations in two provinces.

The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has repeatedly stated that arrest and conviction based on ByLock use in Turkey violated Articles 19, 21 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.