DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Kurdish lawyer and rights activist Muharrem Erbey was among thousands of people who landed behind bars in 2009 as part of a massive probe into an alleged Kurdish separatist network. The persecution of Kurdish activists was hardly a novelty for Turkey, but the way Erbey learned of the court’s arrest ruling was truly unusual, if not Kafkaesque.

“We had just left the prosecutor’s room [after questioning], and before the prosecutor had made any decision, Samanyolu TV reported we had been arrested,” Erbey told Al-Monitor, referring to a channel linked to the Gulen community. “The prosecutor was unaware, but Samanyolu TV was already running a news ticker.”

The channel no longer exists, shut down as part of a draconian clampdown on the Gulen community, which Ankara holds responsible for the botched coup bid last month and accuses of having run a “parallel state” through high-placed followers in the public service, especially police and judiciary.

Even before the coup bid, the government had conceded that Gulenist policemen, prosecutors and judges colluded to “frame” hundreds of soldiers in sham trials, using fabricated evidence that a plot was underway to plunge Turkey into chaos and topple the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).