Why Turkey wants to silence its academics
After the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, one of the first actions of the Turkish state and government was to purge thousands of academics and deans from office.
In a crackdown that rapidly spread across civil and military services, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the closure of thousands of private schools and many universities. Some 15,000 employees at the education ministry were fired, while more than 1,500 university deans were asked to resign.