Ankara removes 28 mayors suspected of links with Kurdish PKK and "coup leader" Gülen
For the authorities, the mayors they were "controlled" or "directed" in their decisions by terrorists or leaders on the outside. They were replaced with the president’s loyal managers. Blast wounds several people in Van, near public buildings. Turkish intellectuals come out against Erdogan’s purges.
Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Turkish authorities removed from office 28 mayors over suspected links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or Islamic leader Fethullah Gülen, who has been blamed for the failed 15 July coup.
For Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, the officials were "controlled" or "directed" in their decisions by terrorists or leaders on the outside.
Meanwhile, an explosion hit the eastern city of Van, injuring several people near the headquarters of the ruling AKP and the governor's office.
Most mayors were replaced by people close to the government. Their cities are mostly in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, which has long been the scene of violence, in particular Sur and Silvan, in Diyarbakir region, and Nusaybin in Mardin, which are known to have PKK cells.
Of the 28 mayors removed, 24 are accused of links with Kurdish militias and the other four of sympathising with the Gülen movement, whose founder is exile in the United States. Ankara has demanded his extradition, so far unsuccessfully, from Washington.
The Pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) reacted by accusing the government of violating human rights and international treaties.
"There is no difference between the mentality that bombards the Parliament, the elected public will, and the mentality that storms into the municipalities shouting to have ‘seized power,’ in a usurpation of the local public will,” the HDP said in a statement.
The new round of purge stems from the failed coup 15 July. The latter is still murky, but it has given Turkey’s rulers, Erdogan first and foremost, a chance to clean house and arrest tens of thousands of people.
If the pro-Kurdish party sees the mayors’ removal as a kind of "administrative coup", for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke after attending prayers to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, “It is a step taken too late in my opinion. It should have been taken sooner, and it was my advice to do so earlier”.
The Turkish government has released information about those it has dismissed from government jobs in the past month following the failed coup: 76,000 detained and more than 16,000 arrested for suspected ties to Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.
The number of individuals detained for questioning or arrested in the aftermath of the failed coup is nearly 100,000. Thousands lost their job, especially in education.
Now, the authorities are looking to hire 20,000 additional armed services personnel to replace those killed during the coup or removed afterwards.
Human rights activists and organisations have accused the Turkish government of using terrorism and the failed coup as a pretext to strike against the opposition, dissidents and the Kurdish minority.
Ankara has also been accused of violence and torture against suspects, even when there was no evidence against them. Ankara is equally blamed for detaining schoolchildren for alleged ties with the movement of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.
Turkish writer and Nobel Prize laureate for literature (2006) Orhan Pamuk slammed the arrest of scores of journalists, including Ahmet Altan and his brother Mehmet Altan.
For the intellectual, these actions are a “vendetta the government is waging against its brightest thinkers and writers who may not share their point of view”.
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