A Dutch court has granted refugee protection to a Turkish couple persecuted over their links to the Gülen movement, and told the government to issue their status.

Rechtbank Den Haag (Amsterdam), 3 September 2026.

The couple, both 33, fled Turkey in 2023. The wife had been prosecuted in 2020 and acquitted three years later. The husband was approached by police, pressured to become an anonymous witness, and warned he would be arrested when he refused.

The Dutch immigration authorities believed their story. They rejected the claim anyway, arguing the couple faced no real risk today because the wife had been acquitted and neither was currently wanted.

The court disagreed, and set out why.

She was acquitted for lack of evidence, not because she was found innocent. Country reports show that people who were acquitted, released early, or had their cases dropped often stay under suspicion, and that new investigations can be opened at any time.

Both had helped families of imprisoned Gülenists. In Turkey that has become grounds for prosecution in itself, on charges of “restructuring” the movement.

Relatives are also at risk. The husband is the spouse and brother of alleged Gülenists, and reports describe partners and siblings being prosecuted more or less at random.

And the pressure does not stop at the border. Both are active with a Gülen-linked organisation in the Netherlands that Turkish authorities monitor.

Taken together, the court found a real risk of persecution on return.

Among the evidence it relied on: Prof. Johan Vande Lanotte’s January 2025 report documenting the rise of “restructuring” prosecutions against people whose only act was helping prisoners’ families.

The government can still appeal.