ISTAR GOZAYDIN, a professor at Gediz University in Izmir, felt the sting of Turkey’s purges earlier than most. She was fired days after July’s failed coup, not by the government but by her own university. She had tweeted articles opposing reinstating the death penalty and condemning mob violence. “Perhaps [school officials] thought they could escape intervention by suspending me,” she says. They could not. Two days later Gediz and 14 other universities were shut down over alleged links to the Gulen community, or cemaat, a shadowy Islamic movement that was in part responsible for the coup.
Most foreign analysts think an alliance of officers from different backgrounds took part in the plot to topple Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the government blames the cemaat exclusively, and most Turks agree. The purge that Mr Erdogan has launched against the group and its sympathisers has swept up over 100,000 people. Last week 50,000 civil servants were dismissed by decree. Soldiers, journalists, academics, airline pilots and businessmen have all been targeted.
Increasingly the…
The Economist: Europe
