Additional 4,500 public workers fired in Turkey over alleged links to Gulen

In a new wave of mass dismissals in Turkey, almost 4,500 civil servants have been fired from their jobs over suspected links to the Fethullah Gulen movement and the 2016 failed coup.

The dismissed include over 2500 employees of the education ministry, about 900 gendarmerie troops, more than 400 special services personnel, and others.

Over 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired and more than 40,000 arrested in the government’s post-coup purges.

• Fethullah Gulen, a writer, former imam and preacher, lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. He has founded a whole network of schools and universities scattered across the world. In 2008, he was voted the world’s top public intellectual in a global poll conducted by the international titles Prospect and Foreign Policy.

• Gulen has been known to oppose religious fundamentalism and politicization of Islam. He follows the traditional Turkish Islam which he views as a religion of compassion and social support, and is a strong proponent of interfaith dialogue.

• In 2014, a court in Turkey found Gulen guilty of involvement in preparations for a coup and issued an arrest warrant for him.

• In March of 2016, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Gulen of having masterminded protests in Turkey’s Kurdish-populated south-east. In July, Gulen was accused of being behind the summer’s failed coup attempt.

JAMnews’ detailed review about Fethullah Gulen and his movement is here