Thousands Detained as Turkey Vows to Smoke out Gülen Supporters

Erdogan’s supporters insist the corruption investigations were an attempt to bring down the government, but others sympathetic to the Gülenists said the investigators were simply doing their jobs, and could not have turned a deaf ear to increasingly flagrant corruption and nepotism in the bureaucracy.

“Hizmet doesn’t have the means to execute a coup d’etat,” said another journalist linked to the movement who was interviewed before the coup attempt. “The corruption investigation was an important turning point, the government thought it was done by prosecutors and officers linked to Hizmet, and what they claim is correct. The question is whether there is corruption or not.”

Whether or not the Gülenists hoped to bring down the government with the corruption allegations, there was no going back. They were accused of orchestrating various conspiracies and setting up terror networks. Thousands of police officers were fired. TV stations and newspapers belonging to the movement were either shut down or prevented from distribution, including one of the country’s largest newspapers, Zaman, which was taken over by the government.

But despite repeated accusations against Gülen of masterminding terror operations from his exile in Pennsylvania, no formal extradition request was submitted to the US. But then the coup attempt was launched.

Turkish officials allege the putsch was lead by a Gülenist core supported by other military officers. They say it was accelerated when members of the military faction that backed the coup became aware that authorities were investigating them as part of a broader effort against Gülen sympathizers in the military.

Since the coup, thousands of people have been fired from their positions in the bureaucracy. A senior counter-terrorism official said it had previously been difficult to root out alleged Gülenist cells because they operated across various government organizations. Now the challenge was to find what the official described as “sleeper cells” that hadn’t taken part in the coup.

“Moving forward, no tolerance or compassion will be shown to supporters of Fethullah Gülen’s terrorist group or any other terrorist organization,” Erdogan said in a statement on Monday. “Without compromising democratic principles and the rule of law, we shall combat all terrorist organizations that place the future of our nation and the state at risk.”

The president’s crackdown on Gülen’s supporters will raise numerous concerns about the government’s efforts to consolidate its power. But his supporters say that their warnings have been fulfilled, even though the evidence of Gülenist orchestration has not yet been made public beyond the statements of officials, and the widespread detentions and arrests have meant that Hizmet is at least temporarily crippled in Turkey.

“They have lost their operational ability, their headquarters and their organizing minds,” said one official close to the prime minister. “We will have to clear all the bureaucracy, whether those who supported the intervention or who are leaning towards intervention.”

Gülen himself has rejected all accusations against Hizmet, and suggested that the coup may have been staged, while some of his supporters say the putsch was likely orchestrated by secularist military officers who were unhappy with the flare-up of tensions with the Kurds and the instability on the border with Syria and they question the extent of the purges.

“Shaaban Disli, an AKP member whose brother gave the order to begin the coup, has a right to distance himself from the coup,” said the journalist who is sympathetic to Hizmet. “But now you are dismissing thousands of civil servants and teachers and bureaucrats for a coup they have no relation to.”