Several hundred academics, students and union members
under the watch of Turkish riot police protested in front of
Istanbul University on Thursday against a purge of thousands of
education staff since an attempted coup in July.
Axar.az reports referring to Reuters.
Ankara, which says U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen
orchestrated the July 15 putsch, has launched a crackdown in which
110,000 civil servants, judges, prosecutors and police have been
suspended or dismissed over suspected links to the preacher.
"Shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism", "we will win by
resisting", the crowd chanted as dozens of police wearing gas masks
looked on.
Among those suspended or removed in the purges since July are
nearly 50,000 academics, teachers and other education staff. Under
the coup investigation, some 37,000 people have also been jailed
pending trial.
The crackdown has worried rights groups and Western allies.
Officials say the measures are justified by the threat posed by
the putsch, in which more than 240 people were killed when rogue
soldiers commandeered tanks and fighter jets, opening fire on
parliament and other key buildings.
"We won't surrender", said one banner held up by protesters,
echoing a headline in the secularist opposition Cumhuriyet
newspaper, whose editor and top staff were detained this week on
accusations of coverage precipitating the coup.
"We are facing a period worse than the coup," said Tahsin
Yesildere, head of a university teaching staff association.
"In our country, which is being turned into a one-man regime
through the emergency, all opposition resisting to this have become
targets," he told Reuters.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States
since 1999, has denied involvement in the coup.