Turkey’s top judicial body, the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), has dismissed 203 more judges and prosecutors over alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement, which is accused by the government of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15.
The decision for the expulsion of the 203 judges and prosecutors was made at the HSYK general assembly on Tuesday, and the list of the expelled judges and prosecutors was published in the Official Gazette on Thursday.
Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ announced in a statement on Nov. 10 that the HSYK had expelled 3,456 judges and prosecutors over Gülen links since the coup attempt.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Despite Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whose views inspired the movement, and the movement having denied the accusation, Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government launched a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
About 110,000 people have been purged from state bodies, in excess of 80,000 detained and over 36,000 have been arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian. Critics argue that lists of Gülen sympathizers were drawn up prior to the coup attempt.