A document published by a Turkish journalist living in exile on Wednesday revealed that a public prosecutor in Ankara had sent a list of names of members of the judiciary to all prosecutors and police stations across Turkey ordering their detention and subsequent arrest on allegations of links to the faith-based Gülen movement.
The list, drawn up by Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor Serdar Coşkun, was circulated on July 16, 2016, a day after a failed coup in Turkey.
Journalist Ahmet Dönmez, who published the order issued by the prosecutor on his personal blog, also added an attachment to the list that includes some of the people who were apparently profiled before the coup attempt.
The list includes not only the names of prosecutors and judges to be detained and arrest over Gülen links but also the names and professions of their spouses.
In the order Coşkun, without any due process, instructs the police to detain his colleagues as soon as possible to head off any flight from the country.
Dönmez wrote that the order by the prosecutor was included in the arrest cases of purged prosecutors and judges and that it enabled a purge.
Turkey’s judiciary is being criticized for acting on orders from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and not basing their rulings on the law. Judges in Turkey who make decisions that anger Erdoğan are either replaced or jailed. Turkey has fallen to 101st place out of 113 countries in the World Justice Project’s (WJP) 2017-18 Rule of Law Index, a comprehensive measure of the rule of law.
The Turkish government arrested a total of 2,431 judges and prosecutors and dismissed 4,424 others following a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, a Constitutional Court general assembly ruling revealed in early August 2017.
Since July 15, 2016 around 150,000 civil servants have been purged under government decrees.
According to the Turkish Interior Ministry, more than 500,000 people have been detained in countrywide police operations and some 30,000 are currently behind bars for their alleged ties to the movement since the abortive coup. (SCF with turkishminute.com)
