Turkey to have cemetery for traitors

European rights convention cancelled

ANKARA: The Turkish government may still be contemplating the revival of the death penalty with regard to the failed military coup on July 15, but in other places across the country, plans are already being made to punish the traitors in the afterlife. The Mayor of Istanbul announced plans for a graveyard especially reserved for those responsible for the attempt to overthrow the Erdogan government, the foreign media reported.

As many as 246 people were killed during the coup; many of them were reportedly responsible for plotting it and now graveyards in the city are refusing to have them buried there. In order to find a quick remedy, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Kadir Topbas announced the allocation of land to be used as a “graveyard for traitors” – a place people can go to insult those who are buried there.

“I ordered a space to be saved and to call it ‘the graveyard for traitors’. The passersby will curse the ones buried there. Everyone visiting the place will curse them and they won’t be able to rest in their graves,” Topba told a group of coup protesters gathered in Taksim Square, according to Hurriyet Daily. He explained that the idea for the designated graveyard came after the mayor of the Black Sea province of Ordu had refused to provide a burial place for the coup plotters.

“A family took a dead body and buried it in their garden. I congratulate the mayor,” he added.Topba explained that the cemetery of the nameless was not a suitable place for the coup plotters to be buried as it included religious people. “I believe that they won’t be saved from hell. But we need make the world unbearable for them,” he told the protesters.

Prior to the mayor’s cemetery plans, Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) announced that it would not conduct religious funeral services for the rebels who died in the attempted coup except for those who were forcibly made to participate.

Meanwhile, Turkey imposed a three-month state of emergency on Thursday, strengthening state powers to round up suspects behind the failed military coup and suspending a key European rights convention.

The moves came in defiance of growing global alarm over the extent of legal retribution after the coup that unsuccessfully tried to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but ended with some 50,000 alleged sympathisers in state offices losing their jobs and around 9,200 suspects detained.

After marathon meeting of his national security council on Wednesday, Erdogan declared Turkey’s first state of emergency since 2002, the year before he first came to power as prime minister.

It came into force on Thursday, almost a week after the rebel soldiers surged into the streets with tanks, bombing parliament and shooting protesters on a bloody night of turmoil that left 265 people dead.

Erdogan said it would allow Turkey to be cleared of “terrorists” linked to US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of orchestrating the failed coup from his leafy compound in Pennsylvania.But Erdogan insisted democracy would “not be compromised” and lashed out at critics of the sweeping purge that has raised deep concerns about democracy and human rights in the key Nato member.

The extra powers, to restrict freedom of movement and other rights, were needed “to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt,” Erdogan said.