Turkey Detains 306 People Suspected Of Aiding ‘Gulenists’

 July 17, 2025

By Balkan Insight

By Hamdi Firat Buyuk

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Tuesday that 306 people in total were recently detained in joint operations by police and intelligence agency in 64 provinces for helping families of alleged supporters of the movement formerly led by deceased cleric Fethullah Gulen.

“The suspects …were wanted for the following charges: engaging in activities within the ‘financial structure and current structure’ of the FETO terrorist organization; maintaining contact with responsible individuals in the organisation through payphones; providing financial support to so-called victimized families,” Yerlikaya said on Tuesday.

FETO, short for “Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation”, is the name the Turkish authorities have given to followers of the late preacher Gulen, who died in self-imposed exile in the US in 2024.

The massive roundup coincided with the ninth anniversary of a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2026.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government accuse Gulentists of operating a parallel structure within the state and of orchestrating the failed coup attempt. Gulen denied the accusations.

In total 371 people were targeted and operations continue to capture the remaining people.

As part of operations, the government has appointed trustees to run two supermarket giants for allegedly helping Gulenist families whose members are in trouble with the authorities. The HAKMAR and TATBAK supermarket chains have about 800 branches in Istanbul.

“It was determined that [the owner] Z.D. employed people who were registered as members of FETO and who continued to sympathize with the organisation,” the state-led Anadolu News Agency reported, citing sources in the security forces.

Nine years since the failed coup attempt in 2016, President Erdogan’s crackdown on so-called Gulenists shows no sign of a slowdown.

More than 200 people, including military and police officers, were detained on June 24 for having alleged ties with the Gulen movement.

Since 2016, more than 150,000 people have been dismissed from public-sector jobs, including army officers, police, teachers and doctors. More than 500,000 people have been investigated, detained or arrested in the course of investigations into the Gulen network.

Thousands of institutions – universities, schools, banks, media companies, NGOs and private firms – owned or run by alleged supporters of Gulen have been seized since 2016. The opposition and human rights groups accuse Erdogan of using the failed coup to target all his critics.

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