Since the coup, around 50,000 civil servants, including judges, soldiers and teachers, have been either arrested or suspended from work.
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Both the rule of law and freedom of expression are now at risk, warns Kristin Hausler, Dorset senior research fellow at the British Institute of global and Comparative Law.
On Monday, Turkish prosecutors began questioning 27 generals and admirals.
“The Anti-Terror Law and the Penal Code have both been used to prosecute journalists, writers, editors, publishers, translators, civil/political rights activists, lawyers, elected officials and students for exercising their right to freedom of expression”.
The video is thought to be a symbol of how the country will deal with those involved in the failed military coup. He had indicated a shake-up of the military was imminent and had also taken steps to increase his influence over the judiciary.
“In a country where our youths are killed with tanks and bombs, if we stay silent, as political people we will be held responsible in the afterlife”, Erdogan said, pointing out that capital punishment exists around the world, including in the United States and China.
“A country that has the death penalty can not be a member of the European Union – and the introduction of the death penalty in Turkey would mean the end of accession talks”, Steffen Seibert, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, told reporters in Berlin on Monday.
President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday told crowds of supporters, called to the streets by the government and by mosques across the country, that Parliament must consider their demands to apply the death penalty for the plotters.
Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004, allowing it to open European Union accession talks the following year, but the negotiations have made scant progress since then.
Turkey’s foreign minister has said that criticism of the government’s response amounts to backing for the attempted coup.
A senior Turkish official told Reuters that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg telephoned Erdogan and told him that he supports the Turkish government saying that NATO can not tolerate military coups in member states.
“Universities have always been crucial for military juntas in Turkey and certain individuals are believed to be in contact with cells within the military”, the official said.
Erdogan’s suggestion that the death penalty could be reinstated has sent shockwaves through Europe, with the European Union warning such a move would be the nail in the coffin of Turkey’s already embattled bid to join the bloc.
Turkey is demanding that Washington extradite Gulen, who has been in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s and who the government has long accused of being behind a “parallel terrorist organization”.
Ankara says the coup was masterminded by US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen and the massive crackdown appears to be targeting individuals suspected of any connection to Erdogan’s ally-turned-foe.
Gulen, in turn, has said the coup attempt may have been staged, casting it as an excuse for Erdogan to forge ahead with his purge of the cleric’s supporters from state institutions.
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Numan Kurtulmus would not provide details about the files but said they include the past actions of the group Gulen leads. “There was a list of people suspected of planning a coup”.
