Yahoo News Turkey arrests 1,000 'secret imams' in latest crackdown
Turkey has arrested more than 1,000 alleged Islamists who secretly infiltrated the Turkish police on the orders of a cleric the government blames for last year’s failed coup attempt, authorities said.
The Turkish interior ministry said it had arrested 1,009 members of the Gulen movement, an Islamist group that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses of being behind the coup against him last July.
The movement is led by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric who is living in exile in the US and was once an ally of Mr Erdogan’s before becoming a bitter rival.
Wednesday’s sweeping arrests were the latest in a broad campaign against alleged Gulenists in Turkey. Around 50,000 people have been arrested since the coup attempt for having links with the movement.
Human rights group says many of those arrested had nothing to do with the coup and only tangential links to Gulenism.
Turkey refers to Gulenists as “secret imams” and says that they had taken up positions inside the police, military and judiciary and were waiting for orders from Mr Gulen to overthrow the government.
Wednesday’s operation was aimed at Gulenists who had infiltrated the police, according to SSuleyman Soylu, the interior minister. “1,009 secret imams have been detained so far in 72 provinces, and the operation is ongoing,” he said. “This is an important step for the Republic of Turkey.”
The government said that 8,500 police were taking part in the mass raids across all 81 of Turkey’s provinces.
The raids were the largest in months and come ten days after Mr Erdogan won a disputed referendum that will allow him to change the constitution and vastly increase his own powers.
"We are trying to cleanse members of FETO inside the armed forces, inside the judiciary and inside the police," Mr Erdogan said on Tuesday, referring to the movement by an acronym which means the Gulenist Terrorist Organisation.
Nine months after the coup attempt, which left 249 people dead, it remains unclear how involved Mr Gulen was in the effort to overthrow the government.
Mr Erdogan said Mr Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania, had directly ordered his followers in the military to seize power in Turkey. Mr Gulen strongly denies the claim and Western governments have treated the accusation with scepticism.
Turkey has repeatedly asked the US to extradite Mr Gulen so that he can face charges but Washington has repeatedly refused to do so.
Human rights groups have accused Mr Erdogan of using the coup as a pretext to clamp down on political opponents and basic civil rights in Turkey.
“Instead of building on the cross-party unity opposed to the coup to strengthen democracy, Turkey’s government has opted for a ruthless crackdown on critics and opponents,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Many of those arrested on accusations of Gulenism had only tangential links to the movement, like having a bank account at a bank linked to the Gulenists or sending children to a school where Gulenists taught.
