ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey said it had dismissed a further 10,000 civil servants and closed 15 more media outlets over suspected links with terrorist organizations and U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed coup in July.

A man waves Turkey's national flag during the Democracy and Martyrs Rally, organized by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and supported by ruling AK Party (AKP), oppositions Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), to protest against last month's failed military coup attempt, in Istanbul, Turkey, August 7, 2016. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

More than 100,000 people had already been sacked or suspended and 37,000 arrested since the abortive putsch in an unprecedented crackdown President Tayyip Erdogan says is crucial for wiping out the network of Gulen from the state apparatus.

Thousands more academics, teachers, health workers, prison guards and forensics experts were among the latest to be removed from their posts through two new executive decrees published on the Official Gazette late on Saturday.

Opposition parties described the move as a coup in itself. The continued crackdown has also raised concerns over the functioning of the state.

“What the government and Erdogan are doing right now is a direct coup against the rule of law and democracy,” Sezgin Tanrikulu, an MP from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in a Periscope broadcast posted on Twitter.

A Turkish court on Sunday formally arrested Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, co-mayors of the largely Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir on charges of membership of a terrorist organization after five days in detention, sources said.

Earlier police used rubber pellets to break up several hundred protesters marching against their arrests. The internet has been largely down in the city for several days, witnesses said.

Turkey’s southeast has been rocked by the worst violence in decades since the collapse last year of a ceasefire between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The local prosecutor had said Kisanak, a lawmaker before becoming Diyarbakir’s first female mayor in 2014, and Anli had given speeches sympathetic to the PKK, called for greater political autonomy for Turkey’s estimated 16 million Kurds and incited violent protests in 2014.

MISUSE

The extent of the crackdown has worried rights groups and many of Turkey’s Western allies, who fear Erdogan is using the emergency rule to eradicate dissent. The government says the actions are justified given the threat to the state posed by the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people died.

The executive decrees have ordered the closure of 15 more newspapers, wires and magazines, which report from the largely Kurdish southeast, bringing the total number of media outlets and publishers closed since July to nearly 160.

Universities have also been stripped of their ability to elect their own rectors according to the decrees. Erdogan will from now on directly appoint the rectors from the candidates nominated by the High Educational Board (YOK).

Lale Karabiyik, another CHP lawmaker, said the move was a clear misuse of the emergency rule decrees and described it as a coup d’etat on higher education. Pro-Kurdish opposition said the decrees were used as tools to establish a ‘one-man regime’.

The government extended the state of emergency imposed after the coup attempt for three months until mid-January. Erdogan said the authorities needed more time to wipe out the threat posed by Gulen’s network as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

Slideshow (3 Images)

Ankara wants the United States to detain and extradite Gulen so that he can be prosecuted in Turkey on a charge that he masterminded the attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies any involvement.

Speaking to reporters at a reception marking Republic Day on Saturday, Erdogan said the nation wanted the reinstatement of the death penalty, a debate which has emerged following the coup attempt, and added that delaying it would not be right.

“I believe this issue will come to the parliament,” he said, and repeated that he would approve it, a move that would sink Turkey’s hopes of European Union membership. Erdogan shrugged off such concerns, saying that much of the world had capital punishment.</s>ISTANBUL -- Turkey's state-run news agency says 10,131 more civil servants have been dismissed for alleged ties to terrorism while 15 mostly pro-Kurdish media outlets also have been shut down.

The dismissals were announced in the latest governmental decree issued over the weekend.

Turkey declared a state of emergency following the July 15 coup attempt allowing the government to rule by decree. It has since suspended tens of thousands of people from civil service over suspected links to terrorist organizations.

The latest dismissals include 2,534 personnel from the Justice Ministry, 2,219 from the Education Ministry, 2,774 from the Health Ministry, 1,267 from higher education institutions and 101 from the armed forces.

The same decree also shut down 15 mostly pro-Kurdish media outlets on similar grounds.</s>ISTANBUL — Turkey expanded its sweeping post-coup crackdown over the weekend, issuing two new governmental decrees that dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants and shutting down 15 mostly pro-Kurdish media outlets.

The decrees were passed Saturday, also instituting changes in due process and university administration.

Turkey declared a state of emergency soon after the July 15 coup attempt allowing the government to rule by decree with limited parliamentary involvement. Such decrees have been used to suspend tens of thousands of people from the public sector over suspected links to what the government calls terror organizations.

The latest dismissals include 2,534 personnel from the Justice Ministry, 2,219 from the Education Ministry, 2,774 from the Health Ministry, 1,267 from higher education institutions and 101 from the armed forces. The remaining 1,236 dismissals were across several different government departments and agencies.

The decree also reinstated 39 military personnel, including a general and an admiral, as well as 35 other civil servants who had been dismissed in earlier decrees.

The purges are aimed to eradicate a network linked to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, which Ankara accuses of orchestrating the attempted coup. Gulen denies any involvement.

But Turkey's main opposition party and human rights groups have, however, accused the government of using emergency powers to clamp down on other dissenting voices- not just the Gulen movement- including Kurdish and left-leaning individuals and media outlets.

Saturday's decree also shuts down 15 mostly pro-Kurdish media outlets over alleged terror ties, including several newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels as well as the Dicle News Agency.

The 25-year-old monthly art, culture and literature magazine Evrensel Kultur condemned its closure in a statement: "There are many signatures under the closure decree. We are certain not a single one has read a single one of Evrensel Kultur's 299 issues" and ending with "we will not be silent, you don't be silent either."

According to the latest figures by the Turkish Journalists' Association, this latest round of closures brings the total number of outlets shut down to 170. In addition, 105 journalists have been imprisoned, over 700 press credentials revoked and a third of the media are currently unemployed.

The decrees also now allow judges to restrict suspects' access to lawyers as well as the recording of conversations between terrorism suspects and their lawyers.

The state-run Anadolu Agency says Turkish Bar Association President Metin Feyzioglu condemned the decision to restrict access to lawyers and record discussions with clients.

The decrees also abolish elections for university presidents, who will now be directly chosen by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan among three candidates presented by the Board of Higher Education.

Anadolu Agency reported that main opposition Republican People's Party deputy chair Lale Larabiyik condemned the decrees on Sunday.

"Everything is between one man's lips," Larabiyik said. "They are dragging us to a one-man regime as a fait accompli. This is nothing more than abusing the state of emergency," questioning whether this was an attempt by the ruling party to bring to life its ideology.

Though critics condemn the state of emergency and allies urge Turkey restraint in its post-coup crackdown, the government extended the 90-day state of emergency for another 90 days earlier this month with Erdogan having hinted earlier that it could be extended to over a year.</s>Turkish authorities have dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants over their suspected links with United States-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the failed coup in July.

Thousands of academics, teachers and health workers were among those removed through a new emergency rule decree published on the Official Gazette late on Saturday.

Turkey has formally arrested more than 37,000 people and has already sacked or suspended 100,000 civil servants, judges, prosecutors, police and others in an unprecedented crackdown the government says is necessary to root out all supporters of Mr. Gulen from the state apparatus and key positions.</s>ISTANBUL -- Turkey shut down 15 news outlets, dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants and tightened its anti-terrorism laws over the weekend in an expansion of its crackdown after the July 15 coup attempt.

The decrees, enacted Saturday, also instituted changes in due process and university administration.

Turkey declared a state of emergency soon after the coup attempt, allowing the government to rule by decree with limited parliamentary involvement. Such decrees have been used to suspend or dismiss more than 100,000 people from the public sector over suspected links to what the government calls terror organizations.

The latest dismissals include 2,534 personnel from the Justice Ministry, 2,219 from the Education Ministry, 2,774 from the Health Ministry, 1,267 from higher education institutions and 101 from the armed forces. Another 1,236 were dismissed across several different government departments and agencies.

The decree also reinstated 39 military members, including a general and an admiral, as well as 35 other civil servants who had been dismissed in earlier decrees.

The purges are intended to eradicate a network, linked to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, that Turkey accuses of orchestrating the attempted coup. Gulen denies any involvement.

Human-rights groups and Turkey's main opposition party have accused the government of using emergency powers to clamp down on other dissenting voices, including Kurdish and left-leaning individuals and media outlets.

The 15 news outlets closed in Saturday's decree were mostly pro-Kurd and located in the country's southeast, near Syria and Iraq. They include newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels as well as the Dicle News Agency. All were accused of links to terror.

Universal Culture, a 25-year-old monthly art, culture and literature magazine, condemned its closure in a statement: "There are many signatures under the closure decree. We are certain not a single one has read a single one of [Universal Culture's] 299 issues."

The statement ended by saying, "we will not be silent, you don't be silent either."

According to the latest figures by the Turkish Journalists' Association, the latest round of closures brings the total number of outlets shut down to 170. In addition, 105 journalists have been imprisoned. More than 700 press credentials have been revoked, and a third of the media is currently unemployed.

The latest decrees also allow Turkish government prosecutors to record conversations between people convicted of terrorism and their lawyers, seize the audio tapes and limit attorney-client communication.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said Turkish Bar Association President Metin Feyzioglu was critical of the decision to restrict terror suspects' access to lawyers.

The latest decrees also abolished elections for university presidents, who will now be directly chosen by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from among three candidates presented by Turkey's Council of Higher Education.

The Anadolu Agency reported that Lale Karabiyik, deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party, condemned the decrees on Sunday.

"Everything is between one man's lips," Karabiyik said. "They are dragging us to a one-man regime as a fait accompli. This is nothing more than abusing the state of emergency."

The government earlier this month extended the 90-day state of emergency for another 90 days. Erdogan hinted earlier that it could be extended to more than a year.

Information for this article was contributed by Cinar Kiper of The Associated Press and Tugce Ozsoy of Bloomberg News.</s>Thousands of academics, teachers and health workers were among those removed through a new emergency rule decree published on the Official Gazette late on Saturday while 15 media outlets, almost all of which reported from the largely Kurdish southeast, were shut down.

Through the decrees, elections to choose a rector at the universities have also been abolished. President Tayyip Erdogan will directly appoint the rectors from the candidates nominated by the High Educational Board (YOK).

Turkey has formally arrested more than 37,000 people and has already sacked or suspended 100,000 civil servants, judges, prosecutors, police and others in an unprecedented crackdown the government says is necessary to root out all supporters of Gulen from the state apparatus and key positions.

A state of emergency imposed right after the bloody failed coup in July has been extended for another three months until January after Erdogan said the authorities needed more time to eradicate the threat posed by Gulen's network as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

The total number of media outlets shut down since the start of the state of emergency has now exceeded 160.

The extent of the crackdown has worried rights groups and some Western allies, who fear Erdogan is using it to curtail dissent. The government says the actions are justified by the threat to the state on July 15, when more than 240 people died.

Ankara wants the United States to detain and extradite Gulen so that he can be prosecuted in Turkey on a charge that he masterminded the attempt to overthrow the government. Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, denies any involvement.
Turkey dismisses another 10,000 civil servants and closes 15 more media outlets for alleged ties to terrorist organizations and cleric Fethullah Gülen.