
Hacer Çakmak is only one of the hundreds of thousands of people who found themselves facing tremendous difficulties after the government started a desperate crackdown on the Gülen movement in the aftermath of a July 15 coup attempt.

As Turkey celebrated the 97th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Parliament and Children’s Day on April 23, at least 520 children with imprisoned mothers have been deprived of enjoying the day as they are obliged to grow up in jail.

The bizarre, phantom-like failed coup d’etat staged against Erdoğan’s increasingly brutal regime on July 15 last year saw him seize the opportunity to exterminate, imprison and purge tens of thousands of his enemies, real and imagined, within all strata of civil society, the military, government, media, education, health, the judiciary and other institutions.

Cengiz Usta, a 44-year-old teacher who was dismissed from his post as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup purge of state-institutions, has been missing since Apr 4, joining two other education professionals who are claimed to have been abducted in the same week.

A.A. and T.D., two teachers who were earlier dismissed from their posts as part of a post-coup crackdown on the Gülen movement, were taken into custody on Sunday at a school in Malatya where they stopped to cast their votes in a referendum on a switch to an executive presidency.

In the last two decades, PakTurk Schools in Pakistan have brought pride and distinction to Pakistan by winning over 260 medals. Its students participated in education and science competitions in 97 countries, and topped the federal and provincial boards as well as Cambridge International Boards of Examinations.

Every afternoon from January 23 to March 28, Ms. Celep arrived at the square wearing a white traffic waistcoat emblazoned with the words, “İşimi geri istiyorum” – Turkish for “I want my job back”. Through sunshine and the shivering Istanbul rain, she stood there as supporters — many of whom had also lost their jobs in Turkey’s great purges — arrived to cheer her on, encouraged by the young woman’s sheer guts and charisma.

In Turkey, a national trauma has turned into a never-ending nightmare for hundreds of thousands of citizens. Erdogan aimed to root out all Gulen sympathizers and turn them into what one local columnist called “socially dead people.” The government’s crackdown has extended well beyond the Gulenists. Leftist activists, Kurdish politicians, and dissenting academics have all been targeted.