Turkey detains top Gulen aide after coup attempt

In this Friday, July 22, 2016 photo, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2nd left, inspects the damage from the fighting during the July 15 attempted coup at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey. He has extended his emergency powers from four to thirty in order to maintain the ability to detain suspects while the investigation continues.

Tens of thousands of people have joined a pro-democracy rally in Istanbul, condemning the nation’s attempted coup.

His nephew, Muhammed Sait Gulen, was detained in the northeastern city of Erzurum and will be brought to the capital Ankara for questioning, Anadolu reported.

Speaking to anti-coup protesters in the central Turkish province of Sivas on Sunday, National Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz said: “We will operate these [public] schools which are owned by the state, the licenses of teachers who work there have been suspended, we will carry on education [services] with newcomers”.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday authorities had taken around 13,000 people into custody over the coup attempt, including 8,831 soldiers.

Senior Gulen aide Hails Hanci was also arrested, a Turkish official said, describing him as a “right-hand man” to Gulen and responsible for transferring funds to the exiled preacher.

The presidential guard numbers up to 2,500 soldiers but at least 283 were detained after the uprising.

And after rounding up almost 300 officers of the presidential guard over suspected links to the coup, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that Turkey planned to disband the 2,500-strong unit, saying there was “no need” for the elite regiment.

The coup and the tough response to it have forced government critics and dissidents to walk a fine line: while the putsch is nearly universally condemned, many in Turkey fear being targeted in a retaliatory witch-hunt.

Celik insisted that Turkey, despite the turmoil, remained committed to its long-term bid to join the European Union, and would honour a landmark deal with the EU to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

It is the first time a relative of Gulen has been reported detained since the July 15 events.

Turkey has undergone a seismic shift since the night of violence, when renegade soldiers sought to topple Erdogan but were stopped by crowds of civilians and loyalist soldiers and police in clashes that claimed 270 lives.

Supporters of Erdogan’s AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, have generally tended to use religious symbols and rhetoric.

As part of the crackdown, over 1,000 private schools and more than 1,200 associations and foundations believed to be linked to Gulen are set to be closed.

Erdogan has said Ankara will soon dispatch its justice and interior ministers to Washington, where President Barack Obama has said that any solid “evidence” would be looked at seriously under U.S. law.

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Gulen is also accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as the “parallel state”.