With three new decrees that Turkey issued on Friday night, enabled by state of emergency powers, 8,390 people were purged from public service and an additional 83 associations shut down.
The new decrees, published in the Official Gazette, are numbered 679, 680 and 681 and are an addition to several others that have led to the purge of more than 115,000 people since a failed coup on July 15.
A partial breakdown of the latest dismissals by institution is as follows:
-2,687 from the Security Directorate General (police force)
-1,699 from the Ministry of Justice
-649 from various universities
-389 from the Ministry of Finance
-313 from Turkish Armed Forces (149 members of the naval force, 164 from the air force)
-261 from the Social Security Institution
-135 from the Directorate of Religious Affairs
With the new decrees eight staff members of the Council of State were dismissed, and the police are now allowed to have access to information on the identities of Internet users.
Four military attachés posted to Turkish embassies in the US, Russia, Italy and the Netherlands were also fired by Turkey’s Coast Guard as part of the new decrees.
The decrees also reopened 11 local newspapers that were shut down after the failed coup. One hundred fifty-seven previously dismissed people were reinstated to their positions in the civil service with the latest decrees.
Among the shuttered civil society organizations are environmental and medical associations as well as several Alevi institutions.
The pro-government media presented this new wave of purges as an attempt to cleanse state institutions of Gülen movement sympathizers.
