İbrahim Kaboğlu, a professor of constitutional law and one of 330 academics dismissed in a recent government decree, has said ongoing purges in Turkey are a dishonor to academics and that they strip academics of all rights.
Dismissed from Marmara University, Professor Kaboğlu told the Cumhuriyet daily on Saturday that the purges could also be considered an insult to the gains of Turkish society as a whole.
Calling the purges an act against honor, Kaboğlu said it would be less harmful if the perpetrators of the purges would kill the victims since he has been stripped of all his rights as an academic.
Kaboğlu also said he suspects that the president, the prime minister and the cabinet members who signed the latest decree might not know that his name is among the purged academics.
In December, Kaboğlu told the Cumhuriyet daily that the switch to an executive presidency in Turkey would be even worse than Ottoman rule under the sultan. “Even the sultan did not have a party,” said Kabaoğlu of the government’s proposal that the president be officially tied to a political party, in apparent reference to current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“This is beyond a sultanate,” Kaboğlu commented, saying that the plan for a new constitution in order to implement an executive presidency would be the biggest turning point in Turkish history since all prerogatives of the government would be vested in the president. According to the new proposal, said Kaboğlu, it would be impossible for Parliament to pass any legislation without presidential approval. The controversial proposal had been recently approved by Erdoğan and issued in Official Gazette on Friday.
Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said on Friday that 330 academics who were sacked from their positions at Turkish universities will be re-evaluated by the Higher Education Board (YÖK) in the face of mounting reactions.
According to the new decree issued on Tuesday night, 4,464 people working in government service, including teachers, academics, police officers, soldiers, members of the judiciary and journalists, were purged from their jobs.
A total of 7,316 academics have been purged in Turkey as part of a post-coup crackdown.
Over 135,000 people, including thousands within the military, have been purged due to their real or alleged connection to the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, according to a statement by the labor minister on Jan. 10. As of Feb. 1, 89,775 people were being held without charge, with an additional 43,885 in pre-trial detention due to their alleged links to the movement.(turkishminute.com) Feb. 11, 2017
