The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued detention warrants for 177 police officers as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement.
Among the 177 police officers are some who were fired due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Police teams on Thursday began simultaneous operations across 25 provinces to detain the police officers.
In another operation on Wednesday, 35 police officers were detained as part of an investigation conducted by the Tekirdağ Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, and 10 of them were arrested due to alleged Gülen links.
Turkey experienced 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 the lack of any evidence to that effect.
Although the Gülen movement strongly denies having any role in the putsch, the government accuses it of having masterminded the foiled coup. Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
More than 135,000 people have been purged from state bodies and 43,000 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian.
