A former teacher dismissed during a purge following a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 died on Friday from injuries sustained in a workplace accident in the southern province of Mersin, days after he was electrocuted while working as a street vendor to make a living, the TR724 news website reported.
Hüseyin Açıkyörük, 45, suffered the electric shock from high-pressure water equipment while washing lemon crates on Wednesday and was hospitalized in critical condition before succumbing to his injuries. He had been selling lemons to make ends meet after the private school where he worked was shut down by an emergency decree due to its affiliation with the faith-based Gülen movement.
Açıkyörük had taught at Gülen movement-affiliated private schools in the central provinces of Yozgat and Nevşehir.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting 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.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Turkey revoked the teaching licenses of 22,474 educators and shut down 1,424 private educational institutions over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement in the aftermath of the coup attempt. A circular issued by the Turkish Ministry of Education on July 21, 2016, barred dismissed teachers from being employed in any other private schools, effectively preventing them from continuing their careers in education.
Many of the fired teachers were forced to take up informal or dangerous jobs to survive, leading in some cases to fatal workplace accidents. Others, such as Gazi Bahargülü, died by suicide. Stress, financial hardship and social exclusion triggered severe health problems for many fired educators.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under active investigation nearly a decade later.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
