With two new decrees that Turkey issued on Friday morning, enabled by state of emergency powers, 922 more people, including 120 academics and 190 diplomats, were purged from public service while three more media organizations and foundations were also shut down.
The new decrees were published in the Official Gazette and numbered 693 and 694, an addition to several others that have led to the purge of more than 146,000 people since a failed coup on July 15, 2016.
According to the new decrees, 922 people from state institutions, including 142 from the Justice Ministry, 29 from the Interior Ministry, 19 from the Defense Ministry and 120 academics from universities, were fired and ranks of 13 retired Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) officers were stripped of their rank.
Two newspapers, one news agency and three foundations were also shut down by the decrees.
At least 23,427 academics (BBC reports), 4,272 judges and prosecutors and 22,920 military personnel have been purged from their jobs due to their real or alleged links to the Gülen movement, accused by Turkish government of mounting the botched coup attempt, a claim the movement denies.
The Turkish government has suspended or dismissed more than 146,000 people, including soldiers, judges, teachers, police officers and civil servants, since July 15 through government decrees issued as part of a state of emergency.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed 249 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.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, 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.
Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ announced on July 7 that at least 50,504 people have been arrested and 168,801 are the subject of legal proceedings.