Samet Alim, 29, a former police officer who was fired by an emergency decree as part of Turkey’s post-coup purge of state institutions, died of cancer on Monday, the Kronos news website reported.
Alim underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor four years ago but suffered a recurrence.
Following an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 civil servants were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs; they were also prohibited from working again in the public sector and getting a passport. The government also made it difficult for them to work formally in the private sector. Notes were put on the social security database about dismissed public servants to deter potential employers.
According to a joint report authored by the Justice for Victims Platform Human and rights defender and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, the biggest problem the purge victims and their families have been facing is economic hardship (97.9 percent) followed by psychological problems (88.6 percent), loss of social prestige and social exclusion (83.7 percent), the disintegration of social circles (83.1 percent), unemployment/lack of employment (80.4 percent) and a lack of social security benefits (73.2 percent).
