The drastic post-coup actions have some speculating Erdogan will revive Turkey’s death penalty, which was abolished in 2004.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed near-absolute control of Turkey on Wednesday when his government declared a three-month state of emergency less than a week after a failed coup attempt in the country.
Erdogan also says the main target will be what he calls the “cancerous” opposition of the U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, accused of being behind the coup attempt.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday that his government had sent four files to the United States in a bid to secure the extradition of a man Ankara brands a “traitor”.
People from across the country took to streets from the very beginning of the coup attempt, shouting pro-democracy and anti-coup slogans.
The Turkish army said in a statement that the armed forces have fully quashed all initiatives by the Gulen movement, and added that those involved in the coup attempt will be severely punished.
The response to the coup, which appears to have been orchestrated by a faction of the Turkish military, has been staggering in its breadth and ambition.
Erdogan says the USA asked for evidence of his involvement before they would consider extradition, evidence he now claims to have supplied. But none of the coup attempts in our political history was as vicious as the one on July 15.
He was addressing supporters outside his Istanbul residence who were chanting for capital punishment to be restored. Federica Mogherini, the head of foreign affairs for the European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, stressed “the importance of the rule of law prevailing” in that country.
Meanwhile, eight Turkish military officers, who fled to Greece after last week’s failed coup, were found guilty of illegal entry by a local court in the northern city of Alexandroupolis, where they landed on Saturday in a Turkish military helicopter. And 257 people working at the office of the prime minister were dismissed. Such a vast detention or expulsion of employees at key state institutions may encourage rather than prevent more instability, critics said.
That followed the arrest of 6,000 military personnel and suspension of nearly 3,000 judges over the weekend.
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On This week, Kerry pointedly reminded Turkey that the treaty that created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commits member states to respect “principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”.
