Turkish police have detained 30 people in the northwestern province of Tekirdağ over alleged links to the Gülen movement based on intelligence records identifying them as users of the encrypted ByLock messaging application.
The Tekirdağ Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention orders for 42 people as part of the investigation. Police were continuing to search for the remaining 12 suspects.
The authorities did not immediately disclose the suspects’ identities or specify conduct beyond their alleged use of ByLock.
The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) compiled the records used in the operation. Turkish authorities claim ByLock was developed as a secret communications system for members of the Gülen movement and have treated alleged use of the application as evidence of membership in a terrorist organization.
The application was publicly available for download, however, and lawyers and human rights advocates have questioned whether alleged use alone can establish membership in an armed organization. They have also raised concerns about defendants’ ability to examine and challenge the intelligence data used against them.
The detentions were part of a crackdown launched after a failed coup on July 15, 2016. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government blames the attempt on the movement inspired by US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Gülen and representatives of the movement deny involvement in the coup attempt. Gülen condemned the attempted military takeover and rejected Ankara’s accusation that he directed it.
Turkey designated the movement a terrorist organization before the coup attempt, but its major Western allies had not adopted that designation or accepted Ankara’s account as proven.
A report issued by the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in March said there was evidence suggesting that some individual followers of Gülen were involved in the coup attempt. However, it found a lack of hard, publicly available evidence proving that the movement as an organization or its senior leadership directed it.
The United States had also declined to extradite Gülen without evidence that met the requirements of US law and the extradition treaty between Washington and Ankara.
Critics say the authorities have used accusations of Gülen links and alleged ByLock use to impose criminal liability without proving individual involvement in violence or the coup attempt.
Tens of thousands of people had been arrested and more than 100,000 public employees dismissed or suspended by August 2017 in the crackdown, which also resulted in the closure or seizure of schools, charities, businesses and media organizations.
