Turkish police have detained 543 individuals in numerous locations in an effort to disrupt the financial operations of the purportedly reorganized network of so-called Gulenists, who have allegedly been cleaned out, Balkan Insight reports.
The alleged Gulenists, according to Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, carried out an operation “in line with instructions given by the organization’s high-level special officials who have fled abroad, keeping the organization alive, restructuring its private units and financial activities, and continuing implementation of their activities… in the country.”
Soylu stated that throughout the course of the eight months that Turkish police had been working on this large-scale investigation, they had detained at least 543 out of the 704 persons whose names appeared on detention orders in 59 different cities.
The operation, which Ankara refers to as “the Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation,” (FETO) is one of the largest in recent years and is focused on individuals connected to the exiled preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in the US.
According to the interior minister, the inquiry revealed that the organization’s members received routine, organized cash transfers.
The administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen and his network of creating a rival government and planning a botched coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Gulen has disclaimed all responsibility.
Since 2016, the Gulen network and those deemed opponents have been the target of a sweeping crackdown by Erdogan’s authoritarian administration. There have been 511,000 persons detained or arrested, and more than 125,000 public employees have been fired. Because of their claimed connections to the Gulen network, more than 22,000 individuals are still detained in Turkish jails.
Erdogan is accused by the opposition and human rights organizations of exploiting the attempted coup to single out all of his detractors and solidify his hold on power.
