Turkey Continues Its Witch Hunt Against Gülen Followers
Photos of the individuals arrested and detained. Source: Turkish Minute.
Date posted: September 3, 2016
MICHAEL VAN DER GALIEN
The purges continue unabated in Turkey. On Friday, 218 individuals were arrested on charges of being members of a terrorist organization. Another 421 were detained.
These arrests and detentions took place more than 6 weeks after the Turkish military staged a failed coup. In the meantime, not only the military officers responsible for the coup have been arrested, but the same goes for many others: people who had absolutely nothing to do with the coup, but who are simply accused of sympathizing with Fethullah Gülen, the Islamic scholar Turkey says masterminded the coup.
In what’s becoming a repetitive story, a host of journalists, lawyers, teachers and civil servants were among those arrested by the authorities.
All in all, more than 41,000 people have been detained in recent weeks, and more than 22,000 individuals were arrested. According to the latest reports, a sum total of 130,000 people have lost their jobs.
A court has rejected an appeal made by a prosecutor requesting the arrest of Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı, stating that there was no new evidence that was sufficient to put Dumanlı behind bars.
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AK Party İstanbul head: Purge in state institutions began long before
Maintaining that the reassignment of thousands of people in the police force and dozens in the judiciary since the breaking of the corruption probe, in which four former ministers of the AK Party have also been implicated, should not be considered routine reassignments, Babuşcu said
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A student at the Pak-Turk School in Lahore was perplexed at the abrupt deportation of all Turkish teachers at the request of the Turkish President Erdogan. “The Pak-Turk School changed my outlook in life. The teachers were more than simply teachers, they were mentors and helped students in all aspects of life,” this student exclaimed. “Why are they kicking out my teachers who have done so much for my country?” he wondered.
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The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) claimed it would minimize the space the state occupies in people’s lives and reduce bureaucracy and downsize the public sector when it was first elected to office. During the early years of its rule, it really moved to achieve these targets. But as it increased its control over the entire state apparatus, it has increasingly become yet another typical Turkish ruling party that prioritizes the state.
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The United States has expressed concern about press freedom in Turkey in regards to the Samanyolu TV network’s top executive, Hidayet Karaca, being arrested after a media crackdown on Dec. 14, saying that it is continuing to address these concerns to Turkish authorities.
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