Sami Demir, a former mathematics teacher dismissed by an emergency decree over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, died of cancer in Bursa on Monday at the age of 49, the TR724 news website reported.
Demir, was removed from his job at a school in Bursa’s İnegöl district by a government decree in sweeping purges that followed a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, on the grounds of depositing money in the now-shuttered Bank Asya and membership in a teachers union.
After losing his job, he worked at a market and a private tutoring center to make ends meet, although his illness left him unable to work in his final months. He had been battling cancer for two years.
No criminal case was ever filed against him, and he sought reinstatement, but the administrative lawsuit he filed remained unresolved for years. He is survived by two children.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the failed coup in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency that remained in effect until July 19, 2018. During this period, the government carried out a purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight by issuing a number of government decrees. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as more than 24,000 members of the armed forces 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.
