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Turkey Dismisses 6,000 More Workers in Post-Coup Crackdown


Demonstrators protest, Nov. 3, 2016, in Istanbul after a purge of thousands of education staff at Istanbul University after an attempted coup in July. The fallout continued Jan. 6, 2017 when 6,000 more Turks were dismissed from their jobs.
Demonstrators protest, Nov. 3, 2016, in Istanbul after a purge of thousands of education staff at Istanbul University after an attempted coup in July. The fallout continued Jan. 6, 2017 when 6,000 more Turks were dismissed from their jobs.

Turkey dismissed more than 6,000 more police, civil servants and academics under emergency rule on Friday, continuing a purge in the wake of a failed coup last July, according to decrees issued in the Official Gazette.

The decrees ordered the dismissal of 2,687 police officers, 1,699 officials from the justice ministry, 838 from the health ministry, more than 630 academics and 135 officials from the religious affairs directorate.

They also stated that individuals overseas who are being sought by the Turkish authorities might have their citizenship removed if they fail to return within three months.

Some 120,000 people have been suspended or dismissed since the coup, although thousands of them have since been restored to their posts. More than 41,000 have been jailed pending trial out of 100,000 who have faced investigation.

Parliament, dominated by the ruling AK Party, voted this week to extend emergency rule by another three months in a move the government said was needed to sustain a purge of supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Turkey accuses Gulen and his network of followers, which it terms the Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO), of being behind the July 15 coup attempt. Gulen denies the allegations.

Emergency rule enables the government to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms when deemed necessary. It was imposed after the attempted coup and then extended for a second three-month period in October.

Friday's decrees also give state-appointed administrators the right to sell companies they take over. Hundreds of firms, many of them smaller provincial businesses, have been seized in the post-coup crackdown.

One of the decrees allows private security guards to carry guns under certain conditions at work, an apparent response to a shooting claimed by Islamic State at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year's Day in which 39 people were killed.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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