Seven individuals including the owner of the Seyidoğlu Baklava chain, Mustafa Seyidoğlu, were arrested on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into a failed coup attempt in July that the government accuses the faith-based Gülen movement of masterminding.
Last week, 27 businessmen, including Faruk Güllü, one of the brothers who runs Güllüoğlu Baklava operations, were also arrested by an Istanbul court on charges of membership in the Gülen movement, which is labeled as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government despite the absence of any court ruling to that effect.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Despite Gülen and the movement having denied the accusation and calling for an international investigation, Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
