Police conducted raids in a dozen Turkish cities yesterday, detaining at least 24 people, including journalists, TV producers and police officers, known to be close to a movement led by US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The government accuses Mr Gulen, who is a strong critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of orchestrating a plot to try to bring it down.

It claims that the group’s followers were behind corruption allegations last year that forced four cabinet ministers to resign.

Mr Erdogan vowed at the weekend to “bring down the network of treachery and make it pay.”

The state-run Anadolu Agency said that a court had issued a warrant to arrest 32 people connected to the movement and that 24 of them were detained in raids in Istanbul and other cities across the country.

They included Ekrem Dumanli, the chief editor of Zaman newspaper, taken into custody at his paper’s Istanbul headquarters. The arrest was broadcast live on television.