Turkey: Parliament approves security bill's second part

The Turkish parliament’s general assembly approved Thursday morning the second part of a highly-debated domestic security bill.
According to articles of the bill's second part, staff of the Turkish National Police Academy, including the president, dean, institute directors and secretaries, will be dismissed from their posts. Directors of police vocational high schools and training centers along with their deputies and the academic and administrative staff will also be discharged.
The parliament also decided to remove article 36 of the bill, which allowed dismissing the president of the National Police Academy before the end of his four-year in-office period.
The new president of the police academy will be chosen in 20 days after the bill comes into force. The rest of the academy’s staff will be proposed by the new president and assigned within two months, if seen suitable by the interior minister.
Also, the academy’s Security Units Institute will now be converted into Police Chief Training Center.
Moreover, Turkey’s Higher Education Board will place current students of the institute at faculties of economics and administrative sciences in other universities.
Discussions on the 132-article bill began on Feb. 17 after it was approved by the internal affairs commission of the Turkish parliament on Jan. 22.
According to the first part of the approved bill, police will be able to use weapons against those who attack schools, public buildings and places of worship with Molotov bombs, explosives, flammable, suffocating and other weapons.
The issue has come after serious rioting in Turkey over the last six months. Protests over the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani that erupted in October 2014 between pro and anti-PKK groups in some of Turkey's southeastern provinces resulted in 40 deaths.
The general assembly of the Turkish parliament will resume debating and voting on three remaining parts of the bill Thursday afternoon.