Turkey’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security announced on Tuesday that a total of 94,867 people have been fired while 30,618 others have been suspended from state posts due to alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement since a failed coup attempt on July 15.
The ministry said 18,331 people who have been expelled or suspended for the same reason have returned to their posts.
Turkey experienced a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement despite the lack of any evidence to that effect.
Although the Gülen movement strongly denies having any role in the putsch, the government accuses it of having masterminded the foiled coup. Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
In the currently ongoing post-coup purge, in addition to thousands of people who have been purged from the state, as of March 1, 93,248 people were being held without charge, with an additional 46,274 in pre-trial detention due to alleged Gülen links.
A total of 7,316 academics were also dismissed, and 4,070 judges and prosecutors were purged over alleged coup involvement or terrorist links.