Iran Press/ Asia: Muhammed Fethullah Gulen a preacher and former senior official who was one the first supporters and strong allies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now lives in a self-imposed exile in the US, now accused by his former close friend and his government for "terrorism" and "mastermind" of 15 July 2016 coup attempt.
The raids were announced on social media by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who said operation “Pincer-3” targeted the movement’s “current structure,” “clandestine military structure” and “student structure” in different provinces.
A video of the operation shared by Yerlikaya on X shows the police officers carrying weapons during the simultaneous raids and searching the bookshelves of the houses, apparently to see if there were any Gülen-linked books, which are considered criminal evidence.
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 in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The crackdown on the Gülen movement members continued unabated for seven years after the coup attempt despite rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which found rights violations in the prosecution of the Gülen-affiliated people and criminal evidence used against them to be legally insufficient.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
More than 130,000 civil servants as well as more than 24,000 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown, which coincided with a notable increase in the number of Turkish nationals granted asylum in Europe since 2016.
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Turkey sanctions hundreds of individuals with links to Gulen movement
