Turkish president declares 3-month state of emergency

Turkey’s president has declared a three-month state of emergency following last week’s failed coup. Further details were not provided-but as Bloomberg notes, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had a rocky relationship with academics all year, putting many on trial for criticizing the government’s handling of tension with Turkish Kurds in the southeast.

He addressed the nation live on television after meeting all day with his national security council and the cabinet.

“Declaring state of emergency aims to take steps for eliminating the risk posed against our citizens’ rights and freedoms, democracy, state of law in our country, in the most efficient and rapid way”, Erdogan said.

“This measure is in no way against democracy, the law and freedoms”, he added. He also called on USA “not to protect this traitor because this will benefit neither them nor the humankind nor Islam”.

Turkey’s government has said the attempted coup was organized by followers of U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen, who is accused of a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through infiltrating into Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary, forming a “parallel state”.

Coup plotters New details continued to emerge about the events of Friday night, when tanks appeared on the streets of Istanbul and the coup attempt began to unfold.

Tonight in a speech in Ankara, he praised those who were killed fighting the rebels as “martyrs”.

The pro-government death toll in the botched coup now stands at 246.

Erdogan said the move was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt”.

Academics have been banned from global travel, and those overseas asked to return home.

The lira weakened to beyond 3 to the USA dollar after state broadcaster TRT said all university deans had been ordered to resign, recalling the sorts of broad purges seen in the wake of successful military coups of the past.

More than 58,000 people in public sector roles are now estimated to have been arrested or thrown out of their jobs.

The Turkish government confirmed that 6,500 employees at Turkey’s education ministry had been suspended. Over 9,000 are in state custody.