Human Rights Watch Director: This is a political purge… pure and simple!


Date posted: January 31, 2017

HizmetNews.Com

Reuters reports that Turkish authorities have dismissed more than 90,000 public servants for alleged connections to a coup attempt in July 2016. Labour Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said 125,485 people from the public service had been put through legal proceedings after the coup attempt, and that 94,867 of those had been dismissed so far.

Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Director, has denounced the purge saying “No one pretends there were 90,000 coup plotters. This is a political purge, pure and simple. Erdogan’s Turkey”

 

As Reuters reports [Erdogan’s] Turkey has been rooting out followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan accuses the Gulen’s Hizmet movement of having infiltrated state institutions and plotted to overthrow the government. Gulen has unequivocally denied the allegations and condemned the coup immediately before it was repelled.

 

 

 

 


Related News

Fethullah Gulen: I consider the coup attempt as a serious “terror coup”

The events of that night [the coup attempt] could be called as a serious terror coup. I categorically reject such accusations. The claim that I convinced the 8th biggest army in the world from 6000 miles away against its own government is an incredible slander. I would like those who are responsible for this coup attempt, regardless of their identities, to receive the punishment they deserve after a fair trial.

Documents expose plot to hold Hizmet responsible for KPSS cheating

The Zaman daily has published documents which reveal that a plot was devised to unjustly hold the members of the Hizmet Movement responsible for a cheating scandal at the State Personnel Examination (KPSS) in 2010.

Approval rate of Turkish schools abroad at 78 percent

Research company Veritas conducted a survey in July 2013 with 4,296 people in face-to-face interviews in 42 provinces in an effort to measure the approval rate of the Turkish Olympiads that are organized annually.
Accordingly, 67 percent of the respondents expressed a positive opinion of these language olympiads while only 8 percent expressed a negative view.

AK Party government removing critical voices from state bodies

Many bureaucrats who are just doing their jobs and have no affiliation with any political groups now face [the prospect of] being dismissed with a claim of having links to the Hizmet movement. However, it is widely known that many of the bureaucrats discharged from their posts do not have any links with the movement,” Arslan said.

Crackdown on journalists leaves void in post-coup Turkey

That is down in large part to the gutting of Turkey’s independent press. More than 115 journalists have been imprisoned and hundreds more fired since the July 15th coup attempt, while 130 media outlets have been shuttered. That, in addition to the sacking of more than 1,000 media workers in the previous 12 months, has left crucial questions unanswered. Put simply, there is no one left – or willing – to overturn the stones on which the failed military takeover was built.

Erdoğan gov’t threatened to ‘wipe TUSKON off market map,’ says chairman

One of Turkey’s most influential business confederations, the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), was threatened with being “wiped off the market” by the government after TUSKON made critical statements about government policies, chairman Rızanur Meral told the media on Friday.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

455 water wells opened in Pakistan thanks to Kimse Yok Mu

Fethullah Gülen’s Lawyers: Gülen Movement Has No Link With Zarrab Case In US

Can Erdoğan finish off the Gülen movement?

Singing, poetry competitions of Turkish Olympiad held in İstanbul, Ankara

Turkey’s post-coup brain drain

Fethullah Gülen’s Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Terror Attack in Vienna

Academic freedom at universities under growing threat

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News