Under heightened police powers, suspects can now be held without charge for one month, up from four days, the official gazette announced on the third day of what Erdogan has said would be a three-month state of emergency.
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A shake-up of security forces is also planned after a scheduled August meeting between the president and high-ranking officials has been brought forward to Thursday.
Public transport in Istanbul has been free since Erdogan called people to the streets and will continue to be so until Sunday, when the main opposition CHP is staging a “democracy rally” in Istanbul’s central Taksim square, to which it has also invited supporters of the ruling AK Party, to condemn the coup attempt.
Also on Saturday, Ankara’s chief prosecutor Harun Kodalak was reported by Turkish media as saying that 1,200 soldiers detained in the wake of the coup had been released.
Halis Hanci, described as Gulen’s right-hand man, apparently entered Turkey two days before the abortive coup, a presidency official told reporters.
Turkey pushed on with a sweeping crackdown against suspected plotters of its failed coup on Saturday, defiantly telling European Union critics it had no choice but to root out hidden enemies.
Erdogan’s government had been under fire even before the failed putsch for restricting press freedoms, accusations the authorities strongly deny.
While Gulen denies any involvement, Turkey has formally asked the U.S.to extradite the Muslim cleric, but Washington wants clear evidence of his involvement in the attempted coup.
“The claim that this was a fake coup is no more credible than the laughable claim that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the United States”. Mass changes within armed forces, judiciary, education and policing systems have already began.
In an interview on France24 on Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Gulen’s influence to a cancer that must be rooted out.
CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu delivered a speech in the rally and said that amid the disorder, “the parliament stood proudly, Turkey stood proudly, MPs stood proudly, people in this square have stood proudly, and democracy won!”. Despite media speculation, however, he did not sack Fidan.
Those rounded up include almost 9,000 soldiers, 2,100 judges and prosecutors and 1,485 police, have been detained, according to the president.
Due to that, the US President, Barack Obama, asked for real proofs that show the participation of Gulen in the insurgent activities occurred last week, since Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, affirmed Turkey was in negotiations and expected to complete the Gulen’s extradition to open a trial in Turkey because of his subversive actions.
The arrests or suspensions of soldiers, police, judges and civil servants in response to the July 15-16 putsch have raised concerns among rights groups and Western countries, who fear President Tayyip Erdogan is capitalising on it to tighten his grip on power.
Schools, charities and other institutions were suspected to have ties to Gulen, a known religious leader.
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“Politics do not matter when there is a threat to Turkey’s sovereignty”, said Ibrahim Okur, a 23-year-old student who says he’s a supporter of AKP.
