Political observer and owner of the MetroPoll polling company Professor Özer Sencar, who was detained on Saturday, has been taken to Tekirdağ province as part of an investigation into Namık Kemal University targeting the Gülen movement, DHA reported on Monday.
According to the report, Sencar was taken to Tekirdağ police headquarters for interrogation.
NBA Oklahoma City Thunder center Enes Kanter’s father, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Kanter, who was detained on Friday in İstanbul as part of a witch-hunt targeting the faith-based Gülen movement, was also taken to Tekirdağ as part of the same investigation initiated by the Tekirdağ Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Thirty-seven of 41 people have been detained while four subjects of the probe are still at large.
“Özer Sencar has been detained. We do not yet know the reason or details. We hope the process ends as soon as possible,” said a message posted on his Twitter account on Saturday, noting that the information had been shared with the public on behalf of Sencar by his family in a subsequent message.
Sencar was released from custody after he was detained in a police raid on his home in Ankara in last September over a claim that he was part of the faith-based Gülen movement, which the government accuses of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15, an allegation strongly denied by the movement.
Sencar is known for his critical views of both the Gülen movement and the government.
MetroPoll is considered one of the few independent survey companies in Turkey.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, 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.
According to a report by the state-run Anadolu news agency on May 28, 154,694 individuals have been detained and 50,136 have been jailed due to alleged Gülen links since the failed coup attempt.