Reuters | ANKARA :
Turkey on Tuesday dismissed 15,000 more officials, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and news outlets, deepening purges condemned by Western allies and rights groups after a failed coup.
The latest dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July’s failed coup. Some 36,000 have been jailed pending trial. European allies have criticized the breadth of the purges under President Tayyip Erdogan, with some calling for a freezing of Turkey’s EU membership talks. A senior U.N. official has called the measures “draconian” and “unjustified”.
Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce
the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with plotters behind the coup attempt in July and of harboring terrorists. Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 people from public institutions, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in Tuesday’s decrees for suspected links to terrorist organizations.
Turkey on Tuesday dismissed 15,000 more officials, from soldiers and police officers to tax inspectors and midwives, and shut 375 institutions and news outlets, deepening purges condemned by Western allies and rights groups after a failed coup.
The latest dismissals, announced in two decrees, bring to more than 125,000 the number of people sacked or suspended in the military, civil service, judiciary and elsewhere since July’s failed coup. Some 36,000 have been jailed pending trial. European allies have criticized the breadth of the purges under President Tayyip Erdogan, with some calling for a freezing of Turkey’s EU membership talks. A senior U.N. official has called the measures “draconian” and “unjustified”.
Erdogan has rejected such criticism, saying Turkey is determined to root out its enemies at home and abroad, and could reintroduce
the death penalty. He has accused Western nations of siding with plotters behind the coup attempt in July and of harboring terrorists. Nearly 2,000 members of the armed forces, 7,600 police officers, 400 members of the gendarmerie, and more than 5,000 people from public institutions, including nurses, doctors and engineers, were dismissed in Tuesday’s decrees for suspected links to terrorist organizations.
