ISTANBUL — The Turkish government Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15,000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets.
More than 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what authorities said were connections to a failed coup July 15 or to terrorists.
The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years.
Erdogan has been defiant, saying it was time that the European Union made up its mind on Turkey’s membership, and threatening to hold a nationwide referendum on whether to continue the talks.
A recent European Commission report expressed concern that Turkey’s worsening record on human rights and press freedom was making accession increasingly difficult. The Turkish president has advocated bringing back the death penalty, which is banned in EU countries as a condition of membership, and he has ordered a thorough crackdown on the country’s media, with 129 outlets now closed.
Human rights advocates have also been alarmed by a measure, favored by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, to declare an amnesty for an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 men convicted of child abuse and rape, provided they have married their victims. The measure, which applies to what it calls “consensual’’ cases of child marriage, was scheduled to be debated Tuesday in the Turkish Parliament, but it was instead returned to committee, forestalling an immediate vote. The legislation has infuriated women’s groups in Turkey and has drawn criticism from UN agencies.
On Monday, a delegation of socialist members of the European Parliament was rebuffed in its attempt to visit Selahattin Demirtas, the jailed leader of Turkey’s leading pro-Kurdish opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, at the prison where he has been held in Edirne, in the country’s northwest.
Demirtas is among 10 members of Parliament from that party who have been detained this month over alleged connections with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by the initials PKK, which the government considers a terrorist organization. The government has also deemed followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen to be terrorists, blaming them for the attempted coup.
A government decree Tuesday said that 375 groups from various cities had been ordered shut down for what it said were links with terrorists, along with nine news outlets. All the financial assets and property of those organizations were to be seized by the Treasury.
The decree said that more than 15,000 public employees were to be dismissed, including 338 soldiers, 404 military police officers and more than 7,500 police officers. All of their passports were canceled, it added. The decree stated that all of them were “related, belonging to or in contact with terror organizations and structures that are considered by the National Security Council as acting against national security.’’
The decree was issued under emergency powers granted to Erdogan’s government by Parliament after the failed coup. Parliament extended those powers Oct. 11 for an additional three months.
Members of the European Parliament have been strongly critical of Turkey’s crackdown on opponents and on the media. After debating the issue in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday, they are expected to vote Thursday to put a temporary halt to accession talks with Turkey.
