Erdoga­n has detain­ed 160,000 people since the attemp­ted coupISTANBUL: Turkish authorities detained 48 soldiers and eight others over alleged links to the US-based cleric who Ankara says orchestrated a failed 2016 coup against President Tayyip Erdogan, the Hurriyet newspaper said on Monday. Turkey accuses Israel of ‘apartheid’ over controversial new lawThose detained were among 89 people whose detention was ordered in an investigation by Istanbul prosecutors, it said. Authorities have carried out such sweeps against suspected supporters of the cleric Fethullah Gulen on a regular basis since the failed coup of July 2016, in which 250 people were killed. Turkey has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants since the putsch attempt, the UN human rights office said in March. Erdogan’s critics accuse him of using the failed putsch as a pretext to quash dissent.

Source: The Express Tribune September 10, 2018 08:48 UTC