A Turkish court on Thursday ordered two teachers who have been on hunger strike for six months to protest their sacking under the state of emergency imposed after last year's attempted coup to stay in jail.
The second hearing took place under heavy security at the Ankara's Sincan prison complex, where they have been held.
Primary school teacher Semih Özakça and academic Nuriye Gülmen have been on hunger strike over their sacking by government decree under the state of emergency imposed after last year's attempted overthrow of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Özakça appeared in court for the first time on Thursday. Gülmen was not brought to court after being transferred to intensive care on Tuesday. The pair's families said she was moved against her will to prevent her appearing in court. Neither were present when their trial opened on September 14.
'FIGHTING FOR MY JOB, MY BREAD'
"We went on hunger strike to get our job back. That's it. I want my students. I'm fighting for my job, my bread," Özakça said.
Saying in his plea that "it is enough to look at the history of people to understand why we have been dismissed. Our class is the class of the oppressed and exploited", Özakça noted, "As I was a teacher earning my bread with dignity, I have been stripped of my job. I am one of the millions of people who have been taken the bread out of their mouth by the government."
"No one expects me to submit to this injustice and unlawfulness," he added.
Telling that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has deprived our children of their future and their rights to democratic, scientific education, Semih Özakça stated, "If you do not think and live like the AKP, you become a part of terrorism according to the political power. Even if you are an AKP supporter, but your relations with school principal appointed by the pro-government trade union are not good enough, you might again become a part of a terrorist organization."
"This resistance is not the resistance of two people. This resistance is the resistance of all opressed people. Their problem was the fear that the hunger strike would turn into an effective protest embraced by people and it would grow", Özakça also said.
Stating that they did not choose to starve, and they would not have to starve, if the political power gave them their jobs back, Özakça said, "It was the political power itself which has both started the resistance and also has been trying to suppress it", and added he will continue his hunger strike until they get their jobs back.
The trial was adjourned to October 20.
After their dismissal in late 2016, Gülmen and Özakça protested daily in central Ankara, then began a hunger strike on March 9. They were detained in May over alleged links to the militant leftist DHKP-C group, deemed a terrorist organisation by Turkey, and the court ruled them to be remanded in custody until the next session in two weeks. The pair faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. The Turkish government targeted them because of their protest and hunger strike.
They have been surviving on salted or sugared water, herbal teas and vitamin B1, and doctors have described their condition as "dangerously weak."
Their original lawyers were not in court. Just two days before the first trial, at least 15 lawyers from the Office of People's Rights (HHB), which is representing the pair, were detained on "terror" charges. Last week a court jailed 14 of them on charges of "membership of an armed terror group", referring to the DHKP-C.
