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Turkey purge briefs: Thursday a.m.
Erdogan ally: Coup attempt will tighten Israel-Turkey ties[IsraelTimes] Senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Ilnur Cevik tells Israeli TV that Ankara expects Israeli intel in fight against IS, says US must ‘think very clearly’ about request to extradite cleric.
[Ynet] Turkish F-16 fighter jets scrambled on Wednesday to check reports that missing Turkish coastguard vessels had appeared in Greek waters in the Aegean Sea, Turkish military sources said. They gave no further details. Some Turkish military hardware was seized and used in last weekend's failed coup in which more than 230 people were killed. Officials have said no military equipment remains unaccounted for. Turkish Embassy Targets 'Gulen-Linked' Cambodia Schools [AnNahar] A Turkish official in Cambodia Wednesday called for the closure of schools it says are linked to the cleric accused of orchestrating a failed coup in Turkey. Fethullah Gulen, who denies involvement in the attempted power grab, is the spiritual leader of the Hizmet movement which operates schools around the world and is also linked to media organizations, businesses and think-tanks. "We know that Fethullah Gulen is behind the coup attempt and we know Zaman schools are affiliated with this person," an anonymous official from the Turkish embassy in Cambodia told AFP Wednesday, referring to the Zaman International School in Phnom Penh. "That's why our government expects these schools to be closed."
The director of the schools, which serve more than 2,000 students in Cambodia from kindergarten to university level, denied formal ties with the preacher. The schools were founded in 1997 by a former journalist with the newspaper Zaman, an outlet seen as aligned with Gulen until its takeover in March by the Turkish government. "The founders of Zaman International School started with the spiritual motivation of Mr. Fethullah Gulen; however, Mr Gulen has never had any official link, ownership or involvement in the school administration," Ejder Kilic, chairman of Zaman Co Ltd, said in a statement emailed to AFP. Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AFP it has not received a formal request to shut down the schools. Turkish National Security Council meeting ends [Hurriyet] Turkey's National Security Council convened on July 20 under the chairmanship of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt on July 15. Along with Erdoğan, Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, force commanders, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Chief Hakan Fidan, deputy prime ministers, defense, interior and foreign ministers, participated in the meeting. According to reports, the government is planning to establish a special court for trying coup plotters and building a special prison for the convicted junta members who took part in the July 15 coup attempt. Top Turkish commander’s aide admits allegiance to Gülenists
[Hurriyet] The Turkish Defense Ministry suspended a total of 262 military judges and prosecutors on July 20, as part of an investigation launched into all military judges and prosecutors. The ministry announced the investigation into all military judges and prosecutors had been launched as a part of the ongoing probe into the failed coup attempt of July 15. Meanwhile, a total of 21 military judges, including five staff colonels and nine members of the military court of appeals, military high administrative court and the Defense Ministry, were taken under supervision by the instruction of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on July 21. The ministry also suspended one deputy undersecretary, one major general, two brigadiers and one rear admiral from their duties. In addition, a total of 900 police officers were also suspended from their duties in the capital Ankara for having links to the Gülen movement, blamed for orchestrating the failed coup attempt on July 15. A total of 257 personnel who were working at the prime minister’s office’s additional building were suspended and their identities were taken. 230 of the suspended were rapporteurs, 19 were experts, six were advisers and the two were legal advisers. Meanwhile, eight top level executives in the Turkish parliament were removed from duty, while the duty areas of two others have been changed, as the government intensifies its crackdown on the Gülen movement. In addition, 15,200 personnel in the Education Ministry, 8,777 personnel in the Interior Ministry, 1,500 personnel in the Finance Ministry and 300 personnel in the Energy and Natural Sources Ministry were suspended from their duties. Youth and Sports Minister Akif Çağatay Kılıç announced that 245 personnel within his ministry had been laid off, while the Energy Ministry and Customs Ministry said they had ended the duties of 300 and 184 employees, respectively. ‘Graveyard for traitors’ to be built in Istanbul for coup plotters: Mayor [Hurriyet] Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Kadir Topbaş has said the city ordered a space which will serve as a graveyard for the plotters of the July 15 failed coup attempt as no cemetery would accept their corpses, calling the plot “the graveyard for traitors.” “I ordered a space to be saved and to call it ‘the graveyard for traitors.’ The passersby will curse the ones buried there. ‘Everyone visiting the place will curse them and they won’t be able rest in their graves,’ I said,” Topbaş told a group of coup protesters gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square late on July 19, while adding that the mayor of the Black Sea province of Ordu had refused to provide a burial place for the coup plotters. Go behind, go under, go around [News.Mic.com] As hard as the Turkish government might try, shutting down Twitter isn't as easy as it seems. At 11:30 p.m. Thursday the Turkish government officially blocked the country's 33 million Internet users from Twitter, but clever, tech-savvy Turks are sharing a simple and effective method to help fellow citizens bypass the ban — and they're sharing it everywhere. Just hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "root out" Twitter, graffiti has been popping up around Istanbul with two IP addresses anyone can use to circumvent the government's ban. The two numbers — 8.8.8.8. and 8.8.4.4. — refer to Google's Public DNS, which can be easily utilized to maintain access to Twitter. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-07-21 |
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