A Turkish nurse who was acquitted of terrorism-related charges over a video showing her braiding her hair in solidarity with a Kurdish woman killed in Syria said Thursday she had been dismissed from her public sector job, the Sözcü daily reported.
İkra Avcı announced the decision Thursday on social media while outside Turkey’s Health Ministry in Ankara, saying she had braided her hair to protest violence and killings of women and that “the price for me was my profession.”
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party’s (DEM Party) women’s branch condemned the dismissal as political and called for Avcı to be reinstated.
Avcı worked as a nurse at a public hospital in the northwestern province of Kocaeli. Turkish media reported that the hospital had sought her dismissal in a disciplinary proceeding and that the request was approved, ending a monthslong suspension from her job.
It all began in January, when Avcı joined a social media campaign in which women braided their hair in response to footage from Syria showing a man displaying a severed braid that he said had been cut from a dead Kurdish female fighter. The images prompted expressions of solidarity from Kurdish women and others in Turkey and abroad.
Avcı posted a video of herself braiding her hair, prompting Turkish authorities to open criminal and administrative investigations. She said she was detained, her home was searched and she was released under judicial supervision. She was suspended from her job on January 25.
She was subsequently prosecuted on a charge of spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization. A court acquitted her in May. The separate disciplinary investigation continued, however, and the hospital where she worked sought her dismissal.
The controversy reflects the political sensitivity in Turkey surrounding expressions of support for Kurdish armed groups in neighboring Syria.
The woman whose braid was displayed was reported by Turkish and Kurdish media to have been a member of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an all-female Kurdish militia in Syria affiliated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its western allies.
The YPG has also been a major component of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Washington’s principal local partner in the campaign against the Islamic State group, a relationship that has long been a source of friction between Turkey and the United States.
Avcı has denied that her post amounted to support for an armed organization, saying the hair-braiding gesture was intended as a protest against violence toward women.
The DEM Party Women’s Assembly said Thursday that dismissing Avcı despite her acquittal amounted to punishing women’s solidarity and called for the decision to be reversed.
