The ongoing purge in Turkey has taken a new turn with the detention of 37 people including doctors, pharmacists and hospital personnel in Afyon province, as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of engineering a failed coup attempt on July 15.
According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, 37 medical personnel were detained on Wednesday.
9 more academics, university staff arrested
A total of nine academics and university personnel from Isparta’s Süleyman Demirel University (SDU) were arrested on coup charges, increasing the already high number of faculty members jailed over their alleged ties to the failed coup bid.
Police detained 35 university staff and academics from SDU on Aug. 27. While 10 of them had previously been arrested, another nine were put behind bars on Wednesday.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt that killed over 240 people and wounded a thousand others, on July 15. Immediately after the putsch, the government along with the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement without credible evidence.
Some 82,000 people have been purged from state bodies, over 40,000 detained and over 20,000 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees included journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian. (Turkey Purge)
