WERE he to return to Turkey in the near future, Celal Kalkanoglu (not his real name) would have to do so in handcuffs. “They will arrest me as soon as I land at the airport,” says the judge. On July 16th of last year, the day after an army faction attempted a coup against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president, Mr Kalkanoglu’s name appeared on a long list of officials to be dismissed and arrested. With the judge having left Turkey, the authorities went after his family. Some of his relatives were sacked from government jobs, he says, and barred from leaving the country.
More than 4,000 Turkish judges and prosecutors, a quarter of the total, have been dismissed by decree since last summer, mostly because of alleged links to the Gulenists, a secretive Islamic movement accused of leading the coup. The vast majority, including two members of the constitutional court, are in prison. Only a fraction have heard formal charges. Mr Kalkanoglu, who...Continue reading
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