Turkey has dismissed more than 4,400 civil servants including teachers, police officers and academics over their suspected links with terrorist organisations, the report said on Tuesday.
Ibrahim Kaboglu, a prominent constitution professor who has expressed opposition to planned constitutional changes giving President Tayyip Erdogan greater executive powers, was among those ousted under the decree published in the Official Gazette.
Court clerks, computer experts and librarians were also among 4,464 sacked, part of a crackdown since the July coup bid which Turkey says was carried out by U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.
However, Gulen denies the allegation.
The dismissals drew criticism on social media; with main opposition CHP lawmaker Sezgin Tanrikulu said on twitter that Turkey’s long-established universities was being destroyed.
Turkey has already removed or suspended more than 125,000 people and formally arrested 40,000 since the attempted coup in July.
During the coup, rogue soldiers tried to overthrow the government and Erdogan, killing more than 240 people, most of whom were civilians.
The government said that the action was justified by the nature of the threat to the state.
The crackdown has covered a wide range of professions from civil servants and soldiers to medics.
Dismissals are announced in the Official Gazette with no reasons given beyond “membership of, or links to, terrorist organisations or groups deemed to be acting against national security interests”.
Rights groups and some European countries have said Erdogan is using the current state of emergency to quash dissent.
Ankara said that the measures are necessary to root out supporters of the putsch and other terrorists.
Among the 330 academics dismissed were those who signed a petition last year criticising military action in the restive southeast against Kurdish militants.
Erdogan had said that the academics would pay a price for their “treachery”. (Reuters/NAN)
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