Turkish high-schooler commits suicide after father was dismissed under emergency rules

Date posted: October 30, 2016

B.N.M., a freshman high school student killed herself allegedly after being bullied by classmates and lecturers over her teacher father’s dismissal from the profession due to his ties to the Gülen movement, on Oct. 24.

Father S.M. was sacked from his job at Boyabat Şehit Ersoy Gürsu High School over his alleged links to the movement, in a government decree issued under post-coup emergency rules on Sept. 1.

The government accuses the movement of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt but the latter denies any involvement.

According to an article released by local Boyabat Gündemi newspaper on Oct. 25 and removed the same day, 16-year-old B.N.M., a first-year student at the same school as her father worked before the dismissal, threw herself off the Boyabat fortress after her classmates and teachers started calling her as pro-FETÖ.

FETÖ [short for Fethullahist terrorist organization] is a derogatory term coined by the government in order to refer the sympathizers of the movement as terrorist although there is no court decision to that effect.

The girl was already dead when she was brought to the Boyabat 75. Yıl State Hospital, according to the article.

Apart from relatives, at least 22 people have reportedly committed suicide either after they were imprisoned over ties to the movement or after being linked to the movement outside prison. Some of these suicides are found to be suspicious.

Turkey experienced a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

More than 105,000 people have been purged from state bodies and 35,000 arrested since the coup attempt. Arrestees include journalists, judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, academics, governors and even a comedian.

Source: Turkey Purge , October 29, 2016