34,000 teachers, 5,882 academics, 1,372 university employees dismissed since July 15, 2016
Date posted: May 5, 2018
A total of 34,000 teachers have been dismissed along with 5,882 academics and 1,372 administrative personnel at universities as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup crackdown, a recent report said.
Human Rights Association’s (IHD) Istanbul branch released a report on rights violations in the education sector, during a press conference on Thursday.
The number of dismissed teachers has hit 34,000, that of academics 5,882 and university personnel 1,372, the report said.
Meanwhile, the number of teachers who committed suicide after losing their jobs has reached 50, IHD officials said.
Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people and wounded more than a thousand others. The government declared a State of Emergency days after the failed putsch and have issued dozens of emergency decrees, known as KHK, to purge its critics from state bodies.
Those dismissed were accused of having links to either the Gulen movement, outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or other alleged terror groups.
Whatever one’s attitude toward or assessment of Fethullah Gülen might be, the case of the preparatory schools is a barometer for the state of rule-of-law in Turkey. Gülen’s ideology is irrelevant; law should treat everyone equally.
Turkish coup was Erdogan ‘gift’
Erdogan became quite successful in his two very basic goals right after the coup. First and foremost, for putting all the blame squarely on the Hizmet movement, led by Gulen, and then carrying on a huge cover-up to hide other segments of the coup plotters. The problem is, while he has been quite successful in Turkey – he was not able to convince many in Europe and in the US.
Erdogan Moves to Shut Prep Schools in Blow to Gulen Followers
The issue is important to Gulen’s followers, who teach about 400,000 of the 1.2 million prep school students. The schools offer additional training to students preparing for exams from elementary schools to universities.
Erdogan has so far removed thousands of police officers and prosecutors on suspected ties to Gulen’s movement, while pro-government media has targeted companies for alleged links to the cleric.
Frontal assault on free enterprise in Turkey: The case of prep-schools
Erdoğan fired a warning shot across the bow of the Hizmet movement, which operates some one-third of the more than 3,500 prep schools, hoping that the movement would fold under the pressure and shy away from criticizing the government on lingering corruption, the lack of bold reforms, the stalled EU membership process, the failed constitutional work, its intrusion in people’s ways of life and privacy, blunders in foreign policy and the weakened transparency and accountability in governance.
Gülen’s lawyer files lawsuit over unlawful police probe into Hizmet
Nurullah Albayrak, lawyer for Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has filed a lawsuit against a police chief who issued a written order to 30 provinces to launch a sweeping campaign into the faith-based Hizmet movement on what Albayrak says are trumped-up charges.
Gülen, Erdoğan’s new agenda item with the West
Yet, no matter how strong of views he might voice to his interlocutors about the Gülen movement (Cemaat) he can’t save himself from the problem of credibility. While he was giving assurance in Brussels that he is not interfering with the judiciary, the fact that the very same day the pressure exerted by the undersecretary of the Justice Ministry to the chief prosecutor in his investigation on a corruption case was revealed through documents will lead the EU to approach these assurances with suspicion.
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