Turkey suspends more than 11,000 teachers suspected of having ties to terrorist group

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
(Image credit: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

At least 11,000 teachers in Turkey suspected of having links to an unnamed "separatist terrorist organization" have been suspended, state-run news service Anadolu reported Thursday.

Turkey's Education Ministry says up to 14,000 teachers could ultimately be suspended. A senior Turkish official told CNN the "separatist terrorist organization" is the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state on and off for almost three decades. There are more than 850,000 teachers in the country, and the official said the suspensions are temporary, pending formal investigations, and the teachers are being paid.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.