Lawyer Mustafa Yaman, an executive board member of the Felicity Party’s (SP) İstanbul branch, has been arrested due to his alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
Yaman was detained last Thursday at the SP İstanbul headquarters where he went to attend a meeting. He was arrested by a court on Wednesday.
Following Yaman’s arrest, SP supporters gathered in front of the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan to protest his imprisonment.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed over 240 people and wounded a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s President 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 participants of the Gülen movement in jails.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ announced on July 7 that at least 50,504 people have been arrested and 168,801 have been the subject of legal proceedings due to Gülen links since the coup attempt.