Turkey blocks Wikileaks as teachers, judges, cops axed

ISTANBUL: Turkey has blocked access to the WikiLeaks website, the telecoms watchdog said on Wednesday, hours after it leaked thousands of ruling party emails just

ISTANBUL: Turkey has blocked access to the WikiLeaks website, the telecoms watchdog said on Wednesday, hours after it leaked thousands of ruling party emails just as Ankara grapples with the aftermath of a failed military coup.

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Around 50,000 soldiers, police, judges and teachers have been suspended or detained since the attempted coup on the weekend, and Turkey’ s Western allies have expressed concern over the crackdown’s reach.

Reports said 99 generals and admirals — just under a third of the country’ s 356 top military officers—were formally charged on Wednesday, and the country was expected to announce emergency measures to try to shore up stability and prevent damage.

Turkey’s higher education council banned academics from work trips abroad and urged those overseas to quickly return home, a report said.

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released nearly 300,000 emails from the AK Party dating from 2010 to July 6 this year.

Obtained before the attempted coup, the date of their publication was brought forward “in response to the government’s post-coup purges”, WikiLeaks said. The source of the emails was not connected to the coup plotters or to a rival political party or state, WikiLeaks said.

Founded by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks publishes leaked material, mostly from governments. In 2010, the organisation published classified US military and diplomatic documents in one of the largest information leak sin US history.