26 January – 1 February 2026
Arbitrary Detention and Arrest
Throughout the week, prosecutors ordered the detention of at least 155 people over alleged links to the Gülen movement. In October 2020, a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) opinion said that widespread or systematic imprisonment of individuals with alleged links to the group may amount to crimes against humanity. Solidarity with OTHERS has compiled a detailed database to monitor the Gülen-linked mass detentions since a failed coup in July 2016.
28 January: Turkish police detained 151 people in operations across 46 provinces over alleged links to the Gülen movement in the past two weeks, with 82 arrested and 54 released under judicial supervision, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said, amid continued prosecutions based on allegations such as payphone calls and use of the ByLock app despite contrary rulings by the European Court of Human Rights.
Enforced Disappearances
No news has emerged of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, a former public sector worker who was sacked from his job by a decree-law during the 2016-2018 state of emergency and who was reported missing as of August 6, 2019, in what appears to be one of the latest cases in a string of suspected enforced disappearance of government critics since 2016.
Freedom of Assembly and Association
27 January: Turkey’s Şanlıurfa and Mardin governorates announced five-day blanket bans from January 27 to 31, 2026, prohibiting all protests, assemblies and related activities and restricting the entry and exit of individuals and vehicles deemed likely to participate in such actions, citing public order and security concerns.
Freedom of Expression and Media
28 January: A Turkish court has placed a representative of Kor Kitap Publishing under house arrest on accusations of “financing terrorism” over royalty payments made to imprisoned editor and translator Tonguç Ok and writer Necip Baysal, a decision condemned by Kor Kitap and the Turkish Publishers Association as legally baseless and a threat to freedom of expression.
27 January: Turkish journalist Sedef Kabaş was briefly detained, in an investigation over social media posts deemed to insult the President and incite crime, as part of ongoing legal pressure on critical journalists, the Media and Law Studies Association reported.
28 January: Turkish prosecutors have indicted YouTube journalists Hasan Köksoy and Arif Kocabıyık and interviewee Halil Kürklü on charges of insulting the president and denigrating religious values—stemming from street interviews critical of Pope Leo XIV—nearly two months after their December arrests.
Judicial Independence & Rule of Law
27 January: Turkey’s state-run Savings Deposit Insurance Fund has put Boyteks Tekstil, a major textile company seized from the Boydak family after the 2016 coup attempt, up for sale with a preliminary valuation of 14.3 billion lira, as part of its ongoing liquidation of confiscated Gülen-linked assets, Turkish Minute reported.
28 January: A Turkish court sentenced Ramazan Demir, a lawyer for jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş, to 11 years and three months in prison on terrorism-related charges, alongside convictions of other rights lawyers and prisoners’ relatives, in a case widely criticized as criminalizing legal defense work.
29 January: Turkey filed the highest number of new cases at the European Court of Human Rights in 2025 with 6,743 applications and had the court’s largest pending caseload at 18,464, most linked to post-2016 coup detentions, trials and dismissals, according to the court’s annual report.
Kurdish Minority
28 January: Co-mayors Ahmet Kenan Türker and Gülistan Özel of the DEM Party in Malazgirt were detained in dawn raids over a “Jin, jiyan, azadî” banner displayed at the municipality in protest of attacks in northern Syria.
26 January: Turkish police detained a nurse in Kocaeli identified as İ.A. for joining an online hair-braiding solidarity campaign with Kurdish women in Syria.
30 January: Turkey’s Turkish Football Federation fined Amedspor FC 802,500 lira and suspended its president for 15 days over a social media video deemed “ideological propaganda” for featuring a hair-braiding clip with the Kurdish slogan “Jin, jiyan, azadi” in solidarity with Syrian Kurds.
27 January: Turkish authorities detained Zilan Gül, a press worker for the pro-Kurdish Yeni Yaşam newspaper, during a dawn raid in Diyarbakır amid a protest ban.
28 January: Turkish police detained two women aged 17 and 20 in Kars province after they shared hair-braiding videos in solidarity with Kurdish women in northern Syria, part of an online protest triggered by a video linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Torture and Ill-Treatment
26 January: A man identified as D.K. was hospitalized with a risk of brain hemorrhage after allegedly being beaten by gendarmes during his arrest in Mardin’s Nusaybin district and jailed before completing medical treatment, despite severe injuries.
27 January: A Turkish academic, Emre Uysal, imprisoned over alleged Gülen movement links, has warned in a letter of severe psychological deterioration and suicide risk amid untreated depression and epilepsy, prompting renewed calls for his release despite authorities maintaining his continued detention.
28 January: A Turkish court has refused to release Ferah Oktan, a 37-year-old former teacher with stage-four cancer imprisoned over alleged Gülen movement links, despite a forensic report recommending suspension of her sentence on medical grounds.
30 January: A former Turkish teacher, Emre Turan, imprisoned over alleged Gülen movement links, is facing a serious health crisis due to worsening ulcerative colitis and heavy bleeding, but prison authorities have failed to transfer him to a hospital for treatment despite warnings from his family.
