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21 journalists appear in Turkish court

Television footage showed police leading the journalists to the courthouse in Istanbul.

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“When tens of thousands of civil servants, teachers and judges are dismissed, thousands of schools and education facilities shut and dozens of journalists arrested without any direct connection with the coup being discernible, we can not simply stay silent”, Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as saying Friday in the Ruhr Nachrichten paper.

Turkey declared a state of emergency following the coup attempt and almost 16,000 people were detained over suspected links to the failed uprising.

Erdogan and the government blamed USA -based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen for orchestrating the coup attempt.

The government says Mr Gulen was behind the army-led attempted coup, a claim he denies.

Almost 16,000 people were detained over alleged links to the uprising, about half of whom were formally arrested to face trial. Tens of thousands of civil servants have been dismissed for alleged ties to Gulen, according to Anadolu, from sectors including the judiciary, education, health care, local municipalities and ministries.

The ambassador was speaking after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on July 28 warned that followers of the controversial cleric could stage a coup in Kazakhstan’s neighbour Kyrgyzstan.

Turmoil in Turkey’s armed forces raises questions about its ability to contain the Islamic State threat in neighboring Syria and the renewed Kurdish insurgency in its southeast, military analysts say.

And authorities issued warrants for the detention of 89 journalists.

“We will surely eliminate all terror organizations that target our state, our nation and the indivisible unity of our country”, Yildirim said in televised remarks at the mausoleum. The officers were later acquitted on the grounds that much of the evidence was fabricated. “We need to make a distinction between those who cooperate with those who carried out the coup, those who supported it and the real journalists”. Turkey’s foreign minister alleged on Wednesday that some prosecutors and judges who are part of Gulen’s movement are now in Germany. “That’s what we believe, but we will continue to defend freedom of press and freedom of expression till the end”.

It is, frankly, absurd to link so many people – tens of thousands, young and old, from nearly every level of society – to the amateurish and hopelessly bungled plot that unfolded on July 15.

“All politicians, including the president, were on a death list”.

Prepared by the Edirne Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and accepted by the Second Heavy Penal Court, the indictment said the operations carried out by prosecutors and security officials during the December 17 process can be taken as a good example.

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Teams from the Izmir Police Department Counterterrorism Bureau conducted simultaneous operations around the city and had apprehended several suspects, the news agency reported.

EU calls Turkey's crackdown on media 'worrying'