Turkey extends police powers, shutters schools after coup

Turkey today pushed with a sweeping crackdown against suspects accused of taking part in the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, extending police powers to hold people in detention and shuttering over 1,000 private schools.

A week after renegade soldiers tried to oust him with guns, tanks and F16s, Erdogan's government has rounded up or sacked tens of thousands of perceived state enemies, including almost 300 officers of the guard shielding his Ankara palace.

But in its first major release of suspects amid global criticism of the crackdown, Turkey set free 1,200 soldiers.

Under heightened police powers, suspects can now be held without charge for one month, up from four days, the official gazette announced on the third day of what Erdogan has said would be a three-month state of emergency.

Fears that the strongman will seek to further cement his rule and muzzle dissent through repression have strained ties with Western NATO allies and cast a darkening shadow over Turkey's long-standing bid to join the European Union.

After Brussels issued stinging criticism and warned Erdogan that bringing back the death penalty would end the membership bid for good, Erdogan fired back that the EU had taken a "biased and prejudiced" stance on Turkey.

He added bitterly that "for the past 53 years Europe has been making us wait" and that no EU candidate country "has had to suffer like we have had to suffer".

"They are making statements that are contradictory," he told France 24 television. "They are biased, they are prejudiced and will continue to act in this prejudiced manner towards Turkey."

Strains have grown with the US, which relies on Turkish bases to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

The man Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the plot against him, the reclusive 75-year-old Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, has long lived in a secluded compound in Pennsylvania, and Ankara is pushing for his extradition.

President Barack Obama yesterday said the US would take seriously any "evidence" of wrongdoing by the preacher, whose followers have long had a strong presence in Turkey's police and civil service.

Erdogan has insisted that, despite the new emergency powers and the mass purges, Turkey will not "compromise on democracy", as Ankara has said its measures are no different to those France has taken since a series of jihadist attacks.

Prosecutors said Turkey had set free 1,200 soldiers, all privates, detained in Ankara after the military coup, as authorities were seeking to swiftly sort out those who had fired on the people from those who did not.

To root out what Erdogan labels the "virus" of Gulen's clandestine "terrorists" and their sympathisers, his government has sacked thousands of teachers and university lecturers, who have also been barred from overseas travel.

In the latest move targeting the education sector, 1,043 private schools and 1,229 associations and foundations will be shut down, said today's Gazette statement.

The steps were just some of the seismic changes that have rocked Turkey since the shock of the July 15 coup attempt that claimed 246 lives.