Turkey sacks thousands of public employees

Turkey’s government has escalated its wide-ranging crackdown against people it claims are linked to plotters in Friday night’s attempted coup, sacking nearly 24,000 teachers and Interior Ministry employees across the country.

It has also demanded the resignations of 1,577 university deans.

Turkish media, said the ministry of education fired 15,200 people across the country, while the Interior Ministry fired 8,777 employees and Turkey’s board of higher education requested the deans’ resignations.

In addition, 257 people working at the office of the prime minister were dismissed and the Directorate of Religious Affairs announced it had sacked 492 staff including clerics, preachers and religious teachers.

The firings come on top of the roughly 9,000 people who have been detained by the government, including security personnel, judges, prosecutors, religious figures and others.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said courts have remanded 85 generals and admirals in custody ahead of trials over their roles in the coup attempt. Dozens of others are still being questioned.

The violence surrounding the coup attempt claimed the lives of 208 government supporters and 24 coup plotters, according to the government.