ANKARA- Turkish authorities ordered the dismissal of more than 18,500 stateemployees including police officers, soldiers and academics, in a decreepublished on Sunday.
The Official Gazette said 18,632 people had been sacked including 8,998police officers in the emergency decree over suspected links to terrororganisations and groups that “act against national security”.
Some 3,077 army soldiers were also dismissed as well as 1,949 air forcepersonnel and 1,126 from the naval forces.
Another 1,052 civil servants from the justice ministry and linkedinstitutions have been fired as well as 649 from the gendarmerie and 192from the coast guard.
Authorities also sacked 199 academics, according to the new decree, while148 state employees from the military and ministries were reinstated.
Turkey has been under a state of emergency since the July 2016 attemptedoverthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish media dubbed the decree as the “last” with officials indicating thestate of emergency could end as early as Monday.
The emergency has been renewed seven times and the latest period isofficially due to end on July 19.
Over 110,000 public sector employees have been removed previously fromtheir jobs via emergency decrees since July 2016 while tens of thousandsmore have been suspended in a crackdown criticised by Ankara’s Westernallies.
Turkey accuses US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen of orchestratingthe attempted coup. The majority of those fired under the emergency areaccused of links to Gulen.
The government refers to the movement as the “Fethullah TerroristOrganisation”. Gulen strongly denies any coup links and insists hismovement is a peaceful organisation.
Sunday’s decree shut down 12 associations across the country as well asthree newspapers and a television channel.
Human rights defenders including Amnesty International have lambasted thepurges as arbitrary but Turkey says they are necessary to remove the Gulenmovement’s infiltration of state bodies.
Earlier this year, the government said more than 77,000 people had beenarrested over alleged links to Gulen. – APP/AFP