However, people convicted of murder, domestic violence, sexual abuse or terrorism and other crimes against the state will be excluded.
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It does not apply to those who committed crimes after July 1, officials said.
The minister said the move does not constitute a pardon or an amnesty but only a conditional release of prisoners.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen of harnassing an extensive network of schools, charities and businesses, in Turkey and overseas, to build a “parallel structure” aiming to take over the country.
Although Turkish inmates have already resorted to hunger strikes to protest the detrimental quality of Turkey’s prisons, one of the main issues appears to be torture, which has been categorically denied by Minister Bozdag.
I was not expecting it. It adds: “In a televised address on local Turkish TV channel, A HABER, Bozdag shed some light on the issue, saying, ‘There are a total of 214,000 inmates in prisons right now”.
The Justice Ministry reports 213,499 people being held as of August 16, which is more than 10% above maximum capacity.
Gulen vehemently rejects the charges but Turkey has embarked on a relentless drive to expel what Erdogan calls his “virus” from all public institutions.
The decrees, published in the country’s Official Gazette, also ordered the dismissal of 2,360 more police officers, more than 100 military personnel and 196 staff at Turkey’s information and communication technology authority, BTK.
It said the companies were accused of giving financial support to Gulen’s movement.
Enis Yavuz, the head of Turkey’s penitentiaries, stated that the increased amount of prisoners had forced them to sleep in shifts and to allocate themselves in common areas, such as bathrooms and hallways.
On July 15, chaos erupted in Turkey as militants attempted to topple the country’s government and overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a coup.
A Turkish official said that the closure had nothing to do with the state of emergency but because the court found the paper was acting as a mouthpiece for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Ozgur Gudem said in a statement on its website that two dozen people were detained in the police raid.
Others were detained at their homes.
Turkey declared a three-month state of emergency on July 21. Gulen has been living in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.
Critics accuse Erdogan of using the purge to crack down on broader dissent.
Ankara has faced global criticism that it has been using the coup attempt to crack down on opponents and jail dissidents.
“What just happened at Ozgur Gundem, the historical Kurdish daily in Turkey, is unacceptable”.
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The Turkish authorities had already seized Islamic lender Bank Asya.
