Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government extended emergency rule for another three months during a National Security Council (MGK) meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday.
During the meeting at the presidential palace in Ankara, it was decided to extend emergency rule and send it to Parliament for approval.
The state of emergency, first declared on July 20 for three months following a failed coup attempt on July 15, was extended for three months in October and January and was expected to end on April 19.
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 Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement, a global civil society movement inspired by the views of the US-based Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The government, by emergency decree, took over hundreds companies, seized the assets of businessmen and shut down institutions linked to the movement.
Despite the fact that Gülen denied the accusation and called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the Turkish 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.