The events of July 15, 2016 failed coup and the following backlash continue to shape Turkish politics on the eve of its fifth anniversary.
On Tuesday, Turkey’s Planning and Budgetary Parliamentary Commission approved a draft bill that includes articles extending emergency measures for three additional years.
The bill includes powers to dismiss public servants on suspicions of links to terror organizations and hold terror-linked suspects in police custody for up to 12 days without charges.
If passed, critics say the bill would prolong measures in Turkey introduced during a 2016 state of emergency and effectively continued following the technical end of emergency rule in July 2018.
While Turkish renditions continue abroad under some international scrutiny, opposition lawmakers and civil society organizations have condemned efforts to extend state of emergency measures within the country.
Reacting to the parliamentary commission’s approval of draft legislation Tuesday, Garo Paylan, a lawmaker with the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, said the government had brought the nation into a democratic and economic crisis by upholding such policies.
In a statement Tuesday, Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation denounced the measures in the draft bill, saying they would lead to the “significant destruction” of democratic rights and noting their passage would ensure Turkey’s 2023 general elections would be held under “a de facto state of emergency regime.”
The International Commission of Jurists also issued a statement Wednesday calling on lawmakers to reject the draft bill and “end the corrosive impact of these powers on human rights and rule of law.”
More than 250 people died during the coup and thousands have since been detained and faced trial on charges of supporting the coup, which the Turkish government claims was orchestrated by Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in the United States.
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