Recep Aydın, a former officer in the Turkish navy dismissed by an emergency decree during a purge of state institutions following an attempted coup in 2016, has died by suicide in the southern province of Adana, the Kronos news website reported on Thursday.
Aydın, 31, took his own life by jumping from his apartment balcony.
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 24,706 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.
Aydın, who graduated from the Naval Petty Officer Vocational School in western Turkey in 2015, was among 361 dismissed in 2019.
Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs but also banned from working again in the public sector and getting a passport to seek employment abroad. 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.
Aydın had reportedly been awaiting reinstatement for two years after the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued a decision in 2022 stating there was “no need for prosecution” against him and 254 others. However, their cases are still pending at the Supreme Court of Appeals.
