Turkey’s Justice Ministry said legal proceedings were launched against 169,000 people in the first year after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, showing the scale of the post-coup crackdown that primarily targeted alleged links to the Gülen movement.
According to figures released by the ministry in July 2017, 50,510 people had been jailed pending trial.
The ministry said outstanding warrants remained for 8,087 people.
Those sought included 152 military personnel, 392 police officers and three governors.
The figures also showed that people already jailed included 169 generals, 24 governors and 2,431 members of the judiciary.
The report cited 7,089 military personnel among those imprisoned. The rank breakdown should be checked against the original source before identifying them specifically as colonels, since that figure would be unusually high for a single rank.
The Gülen movement is a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara blames the coup attempt on the movement and designates it as a terrorist organization. The movement denies involvement in the coup or any terrorist activity.
The Justice Ministry figures showed that the crackdown extended far beyond alleged military participants in the coup attempt, reaching judges, prosecutors, governors, police officers, soldiers, civil servants, teachers, academics, journalists and businesspeople.
Critics described the campaign as a witch hunt, saying many people were investigated or jailed over alleged affiliation, employment history, union membership, bank accounts, school enrollment, use of certain communication tools or social contacts rather than individualized evidence of involvement in the coup attempt.
The arrest of 2,431 judges and prosecutors was among the most consequential elements of the purge, reshaping Turkey’s judiciary within weeks of the failed putsch.
Rights advocates said the mass removal and detention of judicial personnel undermined judicial independence and weakened the ability of courts to review post-coup prosecutions impartially.
