Turkey Notebook

On August 17, the Turkish prime minister issued a "special decree" announcing the release of 38,000 prisoners, not including any sentenced for murder, sexual abuse, or rape. This includes financial crimes.

Tukey's overcrowded prisons and slow court processes have forced all governments to issue some sort of amnesty every year to make room for new prisoners. But the unprecedented scope of the clampdown on suspected supporters of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt, seems to have played a major part in inducing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government to move quickly and include as many inmates as possible in the amnesty.

Thousands of prisoners suspected of actively or verbally supporting Gulen are awaiting court in big detention halls across the country. They need places in a regular prison.

"Are we releasing thieves and criminals to make room for coup plotters?" is a question widely discussed in Turkish media these days.

There's no question -- the answer is yes.

Today I took a look, as usual, at top news from Turkey. Let me give you a summary of the detentions, arrests, and suspensions of the last 24 hours related to the coup attempt. I will also include separate terrorist attacks related to the Kurdish insurgency:

-- 24 detained journalists of the newspaper Ozgur Gundem sent to prosecutor's office;

-- In a terrorist attack in a village close to the southeastern city of Bitlis, four security officers were killed;

-- No trace of detained teacher Demirtas;

-- Per "special decree," 187 businessmen to be detained;

-- Bomb attack on the police center in Van, eastern Turkey: three dead, 73 wounded;

-- Anti-Gulen operation against Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas's son-in-law;

-- National Radio and TV Committee bans reporting on the bomb attack on the police center in Elazig, eastern Turkey;

-- Colonel detained in Gulen-related case tries to defend himself;

-- Governor of Elazig in eastern Turkey says three policemen killed, 146 people wounded, 14 of them seriously;

-- A "special decree" on the dismissal of 2,360 people from police department and 112 people from armed forces personnel;

-- Detention of 86 judges and prosecutors planned.

All that in just one day.

To be sure, "special decrees" by the president or the prime minister play the role of laws in the current state of emergency.

I think the list is not complete. Let's for one moment forget about the terrible terror attacks mostly related to the Kurdish insurgency.

How can you follow the daily detentions and dismissals that have been continuing since July 15 without any break? You can't. Nobody but the security agencies can. Journalists try to keep up, though, with statistics.

According to some estimates, since the coup attempt 77,000 public servants have been suspended, 5,000 fired, 19,000 detained, and more than 11,000 people arrested.

The same sources estimate that the number of 77,000 suspensions will soon rise to 100,000.

The president has warned that the "viruses," as he calls Gulen supporters, "are everywhere." He has called on everyone to report them to prosecutors and security agencies "even if they are your friends."

With the "special decree" issued on August 17, 2,360 police staff and 112 employees of the Turkish armed forces were fired.

Obviously, it is virtually impossible that 77,000, let alone 100,000, people were armed or active supporters of the abortive coup.

Anybody suspected of having even talked positively about Gulen in the past is being reported and eventually suspended or detained. Some have reported that occasionally even friends of Gulen supporters were detained. There are also claims that some people spy on others and report them as "Gulenists" to the security services just to take their jobs or businesses.

A clarification of these tens of thousands of allegations and cases in open and fair trials may take years -- if it comes to a transparent court process at all.

Meanwhile, the accused have lost their jobs and financial security. Together with their families, they will probably amount to around half a million people -– or more.

In 2011, Bilgin Balanli, a decorated four-star general in the Turkish Air Force, was expected to become Turkey’s chief of the general staff. Instead, he was arrested, together with hundreds of other generals, admirals, and high-ranking officers. His supposed crime? Plotting to overthrow the government of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Soon, the number of arrested officers from Turkey’s Armed Forces reached 700.

Three years later, in 2014, Balanli was released, together with hundreds of other officers. No credible evidence was ever presented that they were involved in any “plot.” In April of this year, Turkey’s highest court of appeal found that the entire indictment against the officers was based on fabricated claims and that there was no “plot” against the government.

Whether or not the plot was real, the result was that the cream of the Turkish Armed Forces, NATO’s second-largest, was purged and many high-ranking officers replaced by supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a hugely influential cleric now living in self-exile in the United States.

After becoming prime minister in 2003, Erdogan tolerated, if not supported Gulen and his secretive movement, largely because he saw the strictly secular armed forces and judiciary, which would regularly clean up their ranks of what they saw as Islamists and ethnic separatists, as a threat. Indeed, the army was uncomfortable with Erdogan’s government and in 2008 the Constitutional Court mulled banning the AKP’s leading figures from politics.

A few years into Erdogan’s rule, it became difficult to get an important government position or get a good business deal against the blessing of the “community” -- a reference to supporters of Gulen, who established themselves in the military, the security services, the judiciary, the education system, and the media. This was a new and unspoken dichotomy: a traditionally secular army and court system that was infiltrated by the Gulenists. There were also many Gulenists within Erdogan’s government.

It was under these conditions that in 2011, Gulenist prosecutors and judges orchestrated an attack against senior members of the army and judiciary, claiming they were planning a “coup” against Erdogan’s government. In reality, this was just an attempt to destroy Turkey’s traditional secular and pro-Western structures.

Standing trial after his arrest in 2011, General Balanli said in court that “the goal of this dirty plot [the accusations that he was taking part in a coup] was to behead the eagle,” a reference to the Turkish Armed Forces. Last week, almost a month after the July 15 coup attempt, Balanli spoke out again in an interview with the daily Hurriyet: “With the coup attempt, the eagle has now lost its wings and tail. To achieve its pre-2011 strength, [the armed forces] need at least eight to 10 years.”

If losing some 700 officers, including generals and admirals, in 2011 was the “beheading” of the Turkish Armed Forces, the July 15 coup attempt and its aftermath has inflicted an even deeper wound on an institution whose primary goal was to safeguard the “secular and democratic republic” of its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Five years ago, when the Gulenist movement first moved against the armed forces, Erdogan and his government sat back and watched. They were afraid of the military and feared the secularists had plans to remove them from power. Thus, they were happy to let the Gulenists do their dirty work. When asked about the crackdown, Erdogan and his ministers would just say that justice in Turkey was “impartial” and nobody should intervene in the proceedings.

But by 2013, those same Gulenist prosecutors and judges were campaigning against Erdogan, his family members, and close aides. They allegedly publicized audio recordings of Erdogan and his children, implicating them in corruption and misappropriation, although none of the allegations was substantiated in court.

This time, Erdogan hit back.

Shortly afterwards, he began to purge government agencies, the police, the judiciary, the armed forces, the media, and educational institutions of Gulenists. If it is true that the coup plotters were Gulen supporters acting on the cleric’s orders, then it is plausible that they decided to attack because they feared being eliminated by Erdogan and his AKP.

The failed coup has given Erdogan the perfect excuse to do just that -- remove all traces of Gulenist influence. Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Alan has said that some 76,000 government employees have been suspended following the failed coup attempt. They have all been accused of having connections to the Gulen movement.

“Some 3,083 of the arrested were police officers, 7,248 were soldiers, 2,288 were judges and prosecutors, 199 were local officials, and 4,161 were civilians,” the minister added. This includes around 150 generals and admirals and half of the country’s fighter pilots.

The long-term consequences for Turkey’s military could be huge. Becoming a general or an admiral can take around 20 years; fighter pilots must commit to eight to 10 years of active duty. Add to that the new changes the Erdogan government has made regarding the decentralization of the Turkish Armed Forces. Using the extraordinary power of the president during the state of emergency, all commanders of the land, air, and naval forces will report directly to their respective ministers in the civil government and no longer to the chief of the general staff, as was previously the case. The chief of the general staff will now directly report to Erdogan himself.

To some observers, this could help democratize society. There are concerns, however, that these new lines of authority will mean an end to the Turkish Armed Forces’s meritocracy, especially when those lines lead directly to the president, his prime minister, and a few loyal ministers.