The state of emergency declared in Turkey following the attempted coup on July 20, 2016, which left 250 people dead and over 2,000 injured was extended again on Monday (July 17). This is the fourth time the emergency rule that has been in place for a year extended, even though the Turkish Constitution stipulates that it cannot be maintained for more than six months. The president of Turkey, Recep Erdogan insists that the continued state of emergency is necessary to find and punish supporters of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, leader of the Gulen movement which the government holds responsible for last year’s coup attempt.

Although Gulen has denied any involvement, Erdogan is undeterred and seems to be pushing for even more stringent punishments for the coup plotters, threatening on Saturday to “chop off the heads” of the traitors and restore capital punishment if approved by the Parliament. In the process of rooting out members of the Gulen movement, more than 146,000 Turks have been fired from their jobs, including teachers, judges, civil servants and soldiers, and some 169,000 have faced legal proceedings that left over 125,000 detained with at least 520 children accompanying their parents in jail. Many of Erdogan’s opponents have argued that he is fast leading the country in a path towards authoritarianism.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition party CHP, who supported Erdogan against the coup began to criticize the extension of the emergency rule as early as 2016 when it was first done. He argued that the government was using the coup to expand its power and that abuses of emergency power were evident in the arrest of several journalists, closure of media institutions and seizure of hundreds of companies. The emergency powers provided for by the Turkish Constitution during a state of emergency are expansive. The Turkish government can restrict public movement and association and ban the print and broadcast of both news and entertainment shows as it deems fit. Also, the president can also take over the PM’s duties if he so chooses and security forces do not need judges’ authorization to search people. By all accounts, it seems that the Turkish government is making full use of these powers. Turkeypurge.com, a website run by a group of journalists chronicles the daily injustices being suffered by Turkish citizens under emergency rule, in the name of rooting out Guyen loyalists. A woman was detained and interrogated few hours after giving birth, a couple was detained in the bridal car on the way to their wedding, a boy with cancer died months after his parents’ passports were seized by the government and they could no longer travel to get him treated. The list is unending.

An even more severe outcome besides the imprisonment and torture of thousands of citizens, according to a new report by the Stockholm Center for Freedom is “enforced disappearances in Turkey, sometimes in broad daylight, by security elements linked to the government.”