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Terrorist State of Turkey has closed down 15 more media outlets and dismissed over 10,000 civil servants

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media-closer

Turkey shuts down Kurdish media, fires civil servants

Turkey has closed down 15 media outlets and dismissed over 10,000 civil servants as the Ankara government widens its crackdown on opposition following the abortive July 15 military coup.

The closures and dismissals were ordered in two new decrees issued under a state of emergency on Saturday, Turkish media reported on Saturday.

Academics, teachers and health workers were among those removed over their suspected links with US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the failed putsch. Gulen denies the accusation.

This is while almost all of the 15 media outlets, which were shut down, reported from Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast.

Additionally, the decrees ordered restrictions on lawyers’ ability to privately meet with their clients. They further stipulate restructuring the appointment of university rectors through abolishing elections and allowing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to directly appoint the rectors from the candidates nominated by the Council of Higher Education.

The coup began when a faction of the Turkish military declared it was in control of the country and the government of Erdogan was no more in charge.

Tanks, helicopters, and soldiers clashed with police and people on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. Over 240 people were killed on all sides in the attempted coup d’état.

The state of emergency was first imposed a few days after the putsch bid. It was extended for another 12 weeks earlier this month.

The government in Ankara has launched a suppression campaign on those believed to have played a role in the failed coup, in a move that has sparked criticisms from human rights groups.

It has shut down over 160 media outlets, formally arrested more than 37,000 people and sacked or suspended 100,000 civil servants, judges, prosecutors, police and others.

Germany shuts down mosque over ‘ISIS sponsoring & recruiting’

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5672ee7cc3618879328b45bbGerman authorities have raided and shut down a mosque in Stuttgart on grounds of promoting violence and raising money for terrorist organizations such as Islamic State militants. Authorities said that some of its parishioners traveled to fight for IS to Syria.

Police raided a mosque and cultural center called the Islamic Educational and Cultural Center Mesdschid Sahabe (MSM) in the southwestern city of Stuttgart on Thursday. Computers, data storage devices, smartphones, documents were seized, while the center was closed, said Reinhold Gall, the interior minister of Baden-Wurttemberg state.

“The association supports, in the form of the so-called Islamic State, an Islamist group that carries out religiously-motivated attacks against persons and property,” he said as quoted by AFP.

Known Salafists and fundamentalist Islamists most of them from western Balkans have been frequent visitors of the mosque, he added. Ten people have travelled to Syria to fight for IS after visiting the center while three of them have since died, he said.

“Through the association, donations have been collected for terrorist groups and fighters recruited for the conflict in Syria. In addition, the association and its members glorify jihad and religiously motivated terrorism,” he said. “We do not tolerate associations that advocate the use of violence to promote religious concerns and collect donations for terrorist groups.”

The mosque and center was previously raided by police in March to gather evidence.
On Wednesday, Germany introduced a new special unit consisting of some 250 officers to counter terrorism threat. “The danger in Germany from international terrorism is high, as it is across Europe,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters. “It was high, it is high, and it will remain high for the foreseeable future.”

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, police arrested a prominent German extremist preacher Sven Lau on suspicion of supporting IS. Ralf Jaeger, North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, has described Lau as “one of the leading figures” among German Salafists. Lau is also known for organizing the so-called ‘Sharia police’ which was preaching Salafist morals outside casinos and bars in the city of Wuppertal. last year.

Since 2012, about 670 people have left Germany to join IS and other terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq, according to figures provided by the Interior Ministry.

Source: RT