Following several days of a wide ranging crackdown that has stretched to include military personnel, police, party clowns, judges, financial accountants, youth hostel janitors, religious ministry officials, Efes brewers, and local educators, the government has announced that most if not all “apostate zoo tamers” will now be rounded up.

Said Everyday Working Man, Stooge, One Time Ferryboat Captain, Corruption Auteur, and Prime Minster Binali Yıldırım:

“I’m sorry but this parallel terrorist zoo organization will no longer be an effective pawn for any country, our animals belong to Turkey, their souls are clean,” Mr Yildirim said, according to Reuters news agency.

“We will dig them up these animals [the zoo tamers] by their roots so that no clandestine terrorist organization will have the nerve to betray our blessed people and their zoos again.”

When asked how his government would differentiate between average innocent zoo tamers and those who use their status as zoo tamers to undermine His Majesty’s the Sultan’s Legitimate Government on the Road of Democracy Until You Get Off, Mr Yıldırım stated, ‘If you are not up to anything illegal in your zoo, don’t worry about getting arrested.”

At which point, following his press conference, sources confirmed that 1,300 zoo tamers were rounded up by black clad goons sporting patches indicating their desire to free the animals.  This has led to much speculation on whether this implied the government’s position had expanded to an anti-zoo platform and the purge of workers was merely the first step in an actual complete closure of all zoos.

Reached for a post comment, a spokesman for Mr Yıldırım remarked, “Well, The Sultan’s goal is total dominance of all walks of life.  That means nobody can have fun anymore for certain, so yes, fuck it, let’s go ahead and say we’ll close all the zoos too.”

“The stamp collectors are next!”  [pounds fist]  [polite clapping in room]