I wanted to share with you the grievances I experienced and my expectations for the future as a teacher who was expelled after 15 July 2016, saying that he is connected and affiliated with the Community. I hope that, through this sharing, it will be instrumental in creating an important public opinion in announcing the grievances of those who are truly innocent and wronged, like me, and reinstatement of innocent people to their jobs.
My Life Story
I was born in Niğde/Bor in 1987. During the university preparation process, I prepared for the exam with a scholarship in the Niğde Serhat course for two years. In 2007, I won the Department of Social Studies Teaching at Ankara University Faculty of Educational Sciences and graduated from the same department in 2011. I stayed in KYK dormitory throughout my university education because my father kept his distance from religious communities.
Anyway, I didn’t want to stay in the community house or dormitory at the university because of my high school teacher’s constant invitation to their homes to see me and their insistence on staying in the community house. However, among my sincere friends in our faculty class, there were also those who stayed in the community house and these friends often invited me to their houses for dinner. In order not to offend my friends whom I consider sincere, I went to the community house several times in the first and second grades.
After graduating from university, I went to a private teaching school in Ankara and prepared for KPSS, and according to my 2012 KPSS exam result, I started my job as a Social Studies teacher in Konya. In 2013, I became a member of the Aktif Educators union, which was established legally as a result of the suggestions of our assistant assistant at the school.
In addition, I opened an account with Bank Asya in 2012 to avoid EFT costs, since the owner of the house where I am a tenant in Konya uses Asya Bank. I made my rent payments through Bank Asya until Bank Asya was transferred to the (The Savings Deposit Insurance Fund) SDIF. My account was frozen when the bank was closed.
After the 17/25 December operations of the communitarian bureaucrats against the government, when the community-AKP fight escalated, I had my membership deleted from Aktif-Sen shortly after. Despite this, while I was working as a Social Studies teacher in Konya after the coup attempt on July 15, I was dismissed from my duty on ,September 1 2016, with the Decree No. 672.
After I was expelled, I could not find an insured job despite my constant attempts for about a year and a half. Later, I tried to hold on to life by working as a daily construction worker in surrounding cities such as Niğde, Ankara and Eskişehir. I have been working in a clothing store for two years. However, since I could not work as an insured anywhere until now, I had serious problems in health and hospital procedures.
Although I applied to the State of Emergency Commission, the Commission rejected my application two years later, saying that I was a member of Aktif-Sen, I had an account at Bank Asya and I went to the classroom of the structure known as the community, saying that I was in contact and affiliated with FETO.
I filed an action for annulment at the Administrative Court against the decision of the State of Emergency Commission. However, the court of first instance and the appellate court also found the State of Emergency Commission to be right and rejected my application to return to teaching, which I loved so much, three years later. I then appealed to the Council of State. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across a person who has received a positive result from the Council of State.
My friends at my school and university, especially my close relatives, rather than economic problems, became a dead end to my phones. I had to deal with some psychological and mental problems from time to time due to the social exclusion I was exposed to as a statutory decree. Since my family’s financial situation was moderate, they could not help me so much. They went through a very difficult time because of the difficulties I went through.
As a person who studied in state schools from primary school to university, became a member of a union permitted by the state by law and opened a legal bank account, I was seriously disappointed in my state and nation as I was left alone in this way. In addition, due to the problems I experienced after July 15, I could not even get a chance to get married and make new friends/environments. As a statist and conservative citizen who can only be considered half way old, I don’t want to live my remaining half life subject to social isolation, if God gives me life, because I am a member of statutory decree.
Victimizations Encountered by Statutory Decrees Members
In addition to the difficulties I have experienced individually as a Statutory Decrees member, I would like to talk about the general problems experienced by the Statutory Decrees members as far as I can learn from the conversations I had with some of my sincere friends who were expelled and through social media.
In summary, these grievances experienced by Statutory Decrees members are as follows:
- Not being able to work as an insured in private companies,
- Not to be employed in private companies that have a relationship with the state,
- Obstacles in obtaining or renewing an additional professional license,
- Not being able to withdraw the money accumulated in special funds,
- Problems in using loans from banks,
- Problems related to getting scholarships or staying in dormitories for children of decree laws,
- Spiritual and physical problems experienced as a result of social isolation,
- Obstacles in renting a house and not being able to sell the immovables it owns,
- Restriction of the right to obtain a passport,
- Deficiencies in treatment,
problems such as.
Is Every Statutory Decrees Member a Communitarian?
As far as I follow from social media and the public, there is a substantial number of people who have not been prosecuted or acquitted, but who have been dismissed after being evaluated in the category of “linked to and affiliated with FETO” (I think that the exact number of those who have not undergone a judicial/criminal investigation-prosecution, who are not prosecuted or who have been acquitted can easily be determined by the State of Emergency commission).
In addition, since the opinions and evaluations of approximately 11,000 people are expected from the institutions they work for, their investigations at the State of Emergency Commission continue.
In accordance with the principle of “personality of crime” in penal law, every individual in the society is responsible for his own faults and mistakes and cannot be held responsible for the illegal acts/crimes of his parents, siblings, close relatives, relatives/acquaintances with whom he has social relations a group/party/community/movement.
For this reason, it is against this basic legal principle to label all the members of the Decree Law, around 125,000, as FETO members. As a requirement of modern social life, members of the community, their companies, their unions, who did not even see a judicial investigation, who were not prosecuted or acquitted even if they were investigated, should not commit the crime of people who acted with organizational motives by taking part in the secret/privacy services of the community.
Community members who act as members of the Parallel State Organization at the instruction of the secret/privacy unit in the community, who use Bylock, donate from their salary, invest their wealth to prevent Bank Asya from going bankrupt or deposit money in Bank Asya by drawing money from other banks as well as the members of the modern community and modern society. Due to the conditions of life, every people who establish contact/connection with community members should not be put in a separate category.
Because it hurts the conscience to put those who carry out the decree-laws knowingly and willingly on behalf of the organization, whose subject or nature is clearly criminal and those who do not have an organizational attitude/attitude or who have nothing to do with the organization by throwing them into the same pool and prosecuting them.
My Expectations for the Future
In recent days, some political party leaders have started to seriously talk about the fact that if they come to power, they will reinstate all the members of the Statutory Decrees and eliminate the grievances of the people with the Statutory Decrees. I think that no political formation or group that has not supported concretely in the grievances we have experienced through the, are not sincere about the redress of the grievances of the Statutory Decrees, and that the political parties that have started to make frequent statements about the Statutory Decrees in recent days are in populist attitudes.
Since political parties see around 125,000 members of the Statutory Decrees as potential vote tanks for the upcoming election, they distribute blue beads with populist discourses that do not have an administrative and legal infrastructure that will allow all Statutory Decrees members to be reinstated without any real classification among them.
Because, even if the current administration changes, I do not think that any political party will take the initiative to reinstate all of the 80,000 Statutory Decrees who have been convicted of membership in an organization or whose trial is still ongoing.
On the other hand, thanks to the public opinion that will be formed by the actions and protests of the Statutory Decrees members, the political party officials in our country, especially the current government without delay make a joint constructive effort to reinstate a significant number of those who were dismissed or acquitted due to their affiliation with the community. So I think they’re going to start talks about the problem of Statutory Decrees members.
Thus, I think that social polarization will be reduced and social peace and tolerance will increase, if the members of the Statutory Decrees, who are not prosecuted or convicted for membership of the organization, are returned to their duties step by step.