NPR’s Leila Fadel tells our Newscast unit that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quick to blame the influential cleric. He said the move was not meant to curb basic freedoms.
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In a televised address on Wednesday, Erdogan said the decision was made following a meeting with members of the national security council.
Erdogan said the move was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt”.
“This measure is in no way against democracy, the law and freedoms”, he added. “Quite on the contrary, it has the objective of strengthening and protecting these values”.
Under the Turkish Constitution, the emergency measures allow the government to “partially or entirely” suspend “the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms”, so long as it doesn’t violate worldwide law obligations.
A Turkish criminal lawyer said that even if capital punishment was reintroduced in Turkey, it couldn’t be legally applied to any of the alleged perpetrators of the coup because it would be violating global rights principles.
“We would like to inform the Maltese public that Turkey is dealing with the consequences of the foiled coup attempt… worldwide reports claiming that there is an ongoing purge in Turkey is baseless”.
In his speech, Mr Erdogan expressed his “deepest gratitude” to citizens who took to the streets during the unrest in the country to show their support for his administration. A total of 49,337 public sector workers – including military and police personnel – have lost their jobs since Friday, according to Hurriyet.
Officials have raised the death toll from the violence surrounding the coup attempt to 240 government supporters. At least 24 coup plotters were also killed.
Turkish media says the government is expanding its purge of suspected coup backers and has begun to revoke the licenses of 21,000 teachers at private schools.
On Wednesday, academics were barred from traveling overseas for work in an effort to prevent scholars and university teachers accused of participation in the coup plot from fleeing the country, Turkish officials said…
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In addition, 399 employees of the Ministry of Family and Social Polices were stripped of their responsibilities on Tuesday, and 257 people working at the office of the prime minister were also sacked, Anadolu reported. “Did they not arrest people in very high numbers?”
