Turkey Suspends 60 Workers at Nation's Highest Court
by VOA News July 30, 2016
Turkey continued its government crackdown in the wake of the July 15 failed military coup with the suspension Saturday of 60 Constitutional Court employees.
The suspension will remain in effect until the employees' possible links to the coup attempt are assessed, the court said in a statement. Eight other employees had already been dismissed and were detained July 18.
The purges at the country's highest court came on the same day Turkish courts released more than 800 soldiers, mostly in Istanbul and a few dozen in Ankara, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
According to the report, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said he would drop lawsuits against those who insulted him, in a one-time gesture of "unity" – a reference to journalists he has been fighting in court. Turkey is keeping 17 journalists in detention on charges of "terror group" membership.
Late Friday, Erdogan told Western critics of the widening purge to "mind your own business."
Close to 70,000 people have been suspended or dismissed from their jobs in Turkey, according to the latest figures cited by Anadolu. Employees and officials in the judiciary, the education system, media, health care and other sectors have been affected. Among them are people suspected of ties to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government has said masterminded the coup attempt.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s, has denied any involvement in or prior knowledge of the coup.
The U.S. has voiced concerns about "the longer-term impact" of the coup attempt on U.S. relations with the Turkish military and vehemently rejected assertions by Erdogan that the U.S. military was siding with plotters of the failed coup.
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