YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS. Turkey’s president and government instrumentalized the violent military coup attempt of July 2016 to crack down on human rights and dismantle basic democratic safeguards, Human Rights Watch said in a report, reports “Armenpress”.

“In the last six months of the year, the government carried out mass arrests of journalists, closed multiple media outlets, and jailed elected opposition politicians. It dismissed or detained without due process over 100,000 civil servants including teachers, judges and prosecutors, suspended hundreds of nongovernmental groups”, the report says.

Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said after the coup attempt instead of strengthening democracy, Turkey’s government launched a ruthless crackdown on critics and opponents.

“With hundreds of thousands of people dismissed or detained without due process, an independent media silenced and Kurdish opposition members of parliament in jail, Turkey has been plunged into its worst crisis in a generation”, Hugh Williamson said.