Lütfü Gündoğdu, a 71-year-old former public servant who was dismissed from his job and detained in the aftermath of a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, died of colon cancer on August 20, revealing the extent of a purge carried out by the government in Turkey.
Gündoğdu, who worked at the Turkish Coal Enterprises (TKİ) as an administrative officer for 40 years, was dismissed by a government decree after the abortive putsch of July 15, 2016 and detained the following year for alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement.
According to the Kronos news website, Gündoğdu was released after being detained for two days in June 2017, but had to fight for his acquittal, which came only in 2021. Despite the court clearing his name, his pension was delayed for years. Unable to access his retirement benefits, Gündoğdu had to work in the fields, picking olives and tomatoes for daily wages to survive.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the movement since the corruption investigations of 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began targeting its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following the failed coup in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The stress of his situation, according to his family, took a severe toll on his health, and he was ultimately diagnosed with colon cancer.
“He cried every day, like a child, unable to comprehend how someone who had served his country for four decades could be treated as a terrorist,” his son, O. Gündoğdu, said. “He even had to undergo psychological treatment, and while he was in the hospital they threw him out of his government housing.”
Following the abortive putsch, 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. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 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.
Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs; they were also banned 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.
The Gündoğdu family was further fractured by the purge, with five of his seven children facing similar charges and one son still imprisoned.
A joint report released by the Justice for Victims Platform and Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights defender and lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), states that dismissed public servants lost 70 percent of their average monthly income, a circumstance that reduced them to dire financial straits,
According to victims’ family members taking part in a survey, the biggest problem they 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), disintegration of social circles (83.1 percent), unemployment/lack of employment (80.4 percent) and lack of social security (73.2 percent).
The survey indicates that 99.1 percent of the victims are college or university graduates or holders of master’s or doctoral degrees, which means an immense loss of human resources for Turkey’s public administration.
