President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey has sentenced a judge at a UN war crimes court to seven years and six months in prison on charges of “membership in a terrorist organisation”, the court in the Hague, Netherlands said on Thursday.

Judge Aydin Akay has been held since September 2016, one of tens of thousands of Turkish officials arrested in a crackdown on people and organsations after a foiled coup in which hundreds died.

The UN court said in a statement that Turkey’s actions violated international law, as Akay should enjoy diplomatic immunity.

NAN reports that the UN demanded the release of the judge Akay.

Akay, 66, is a member of a five-member UN panel assigned in July to review the judgment of former Rwandan planning minister Augustin Ngirabatware.

The president of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) Theodor Meron, in November 2016 told the UN General Assembly that Turkey had repeatedly ignored his requests to visit Akay since his arrest.

This, he said, violates Akay’s judicial independence.

“As a result of his detention, the proceedings have come to a standstill,” said Meron.

Meron demanded Turkey “immediately release judge Akay from detention and enable him to resume his lawfully-assigned judicial functions” on the UN panel.

NAN reports that on Wednesday, Turkish authorities issued detention warrants for 189 lawyers as part of an investigation into followers of a Muslim cleric accused of orchestrating the July 2016 attempted coup.

The scope of purges that have also seen more than 130 media outlets shut down and some 150 journalists jailed has unnerved rights groups and Western allies, who fear President Tayyip Erdogan is using the coup bid as a pretext to muzzle dissent.

The agency said the 189 suspects were sought by anti-terrorist police across eight provinces including Istanbul for alleged links to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

He has denied involvement in the failed putsch.

Police have so far detained 78 of the lawyers, some believed to be users of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen’s followers.

Since the July coup attempt, authorities have jailed pending trial 50,000 people and sacked or suspended 150,000, including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups, including Gulen’s network.

Erdogan says the crackdown is necessary due to the gravity of the coup attempt in which 240 people were killed.