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Turkey 'This is the 275th day of our hunger strike'

STEVE SWEENEY meets with Semih Ozakca, a symbol of resistance against President Erdogan’s crackdown on public-sector workers

THE photograph above epitomises how desperate the situation has become in Turkey.

I met primary school teacher Semih Ozakca in Ankara last Friday. He has been on hunger strike for 278 days since he was purged from his post.

Along with Nuriye Gulmen, Ozakca has become a symbol of resistance in Turkey. Their hunger strike has aimed to draw attention to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on public-sector workers, with more than 100,000 sacked since the failed coup attempt of July 2016.

Ozakca has survived on water, sugar, salt and vitamin B, however remains weak and susceptible to illness.

When we visited his apartment, we were asked to wear face masks and given anti-bacterial hand gel as a virus could potentially be fatal.

Like so many other activists in the country, Ozakca has been branded a terrorist — a catch-all term for anybody who stands up to Erdogan’s oppressive rule in Turkey.

His crime? To demand peace, justice and reinstatement to his job.

Turkey has been in a state of emergency since the failed coup last year and this has effectively granted Erdogan dictatorial powers, which he has used against all layers of society to tighten his grip on the country. The state of emergency was recently extended for the fifth time.

Erdogan rules by decree and people in the country say they regularly check the government website and papers to see if they have been purged. Some saying they have found out they have lost their jobs by tuning into the radio on their way to work.

Despite its supposed aim of targeting those suspected of plotting the coup attempt, the state of emergency has been used to stifle all forms of opposition in Turkey.

More than 140,000 public-sector workers have lost their jobs, newspapers and media outlets closed and more journalists have been jailed than anywhere else in the world.

And People’s Democratic Party (HDP) MPs, including co-chairs Figen Yuksekdag and Selahattin Demirtas have been jailed along with 85 mayors and an estimated 10,000 activists.

The government fear that Ozakca and Gulmen’s cause will be a platform for the kind of broader anti-government protests that were seen during the Gezi uprising in 2013.

Their protests initially took place in public at the human rights monument in central Ankara, where they were detained numerous times.

On March 9 this year they started their hunger strike while in police custody and continued publicly after their release five days later.

However, in May as the protests continued to grow, the pair were arrested and charged with alleged membership of the Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), which the state has deemed a terrorist organisation.

Ozakca and Gulmen were taken to Ankara’s notorious Sincan prison, one of the many built across the country to house suspected coup plotters.

On December 1 Gulmen was found guilty and sentenced to six years and three months in prison. However the court ordered her release pending an appeal. She was eventually cleared of lesser charges, including organising illegal rallies.

Ozakca was acquitted of similar charges, however he is effectively under house arrest and is forced to wear an electronic tag for the rest of the trial.

As more teachers and academics have suffered under the purges — more than 8,000 have been sacked by decree since July 2016 — they, along with other trade unionists and progressives have also been arrested for protests which raised the simple demand: “I want my job back.”

Said Yuce, an MP for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said of the protests: “There is no place for hunger strike in religion.”

While, in a statement following the arrests, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said: “We do not send our children to the school to get them educated as terrorists.”

At the trail of Ozakca and Gulmen, the authorities attacked their supports outside the court with tear gas and water cannons.

The defence team was arrested two days before the trial began while Ozakca and Gulmen were unable to appear in court, with the judge saying they were too weak to attend.

Ozakca’s wife Esra, who has also been on hunger strike, explained that she had been dismissed from her job for visiting him while in prison.

She has suffered constant harassment from the police and has been held in custody a number of times, including five days for sharing a tweet in support of her husband.

Ozakca told me: “My wife was sacked from her job for coming and visiting me and I just found out that another lecturer from the university who came to see me was sacked as well.

“They are trying to isolate us from the community by making people afraid to stand with us, or even to visit us. They want them to be afraid.

“It is the 275th day of our hunger strike. But pressure from international bodies may be useful.”

In a statement, the families of the pair said: “Let Nuriye and Semih and the people who are supporting them and resisting state violence know that they are not alone.

“Their struggle and this trial is very important for the history of democratic struggle of the people of Turkey and the world.

“Your presence will empower us in this legitimate struggle against the unjust purges in Turkey and our demand for justice.”

They have urged international supporters to attend the trial and lend their voices to the struggle.

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