Turkish teacher, Acun Karadağ (pictured) has come forward to share her story as representative of thousands of other Public Servants who have been arbitrarily dismissed from their posts since the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016.
Ms Karadağ’s nightmare began in October of that year when she was dismissed from her job as a teacher by a presidential decree before being briefly detained by police.
She became an activist, joining a handful of Public Servants holding demonstrations on Ankara’s famous Yüksel Street to protest against their dismissal from Government jobs.
The protest has been continuing for years with the slogan, ‘I want my job back’.
Members of the group are still determined to claim what they say is rightfully theirs, despite having been detained hundreds of times.
Ms Karadağ said that not only was the sacking of Public Servants unconstitutional, all avenues were shut for victims to seek legal redress.
Most dismissed Public Servants are accused of links to Muslim preacher, Fethullah Gülen and his followers, but there were many others who belonged to other opposition groups.
The teacher said the Turkish Government was operating in the same way as the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s, first by creating enemies out of a one segment of society, followed by the slow destruction of other groups.
“This is what happened in Turkey. Nowadays everyone is declared a Gülenist, or a member of Kurdistan Workers Party — outlawed organisations that are designated terrorist groups by Ankara,” Ms Karadağ said.
Ankara, 8 February 2021
