To introduce herself, Karadağ said that she came from a poor family and she has worked as a public school teacher for 20 years. Stating that she worked only in 2 different schools in the Turkish capital of Ankara throughout her entire professional life, Karadağ said that everything changed in Turkey under the rule of Justice and Development Party (AKP): “They do not want respected people who think, read and question. They do not want the people to think but instead to surrender to them. That is the very basis of dismissals. One of the main aims of the emergency decrees was to terminate the civil service.”
GOVERNMENT DISREGARDS INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE
In answer to how to evaluate the transformational process in the field of education in the last 15 years during which AKP ruled Turkey, Acun Karadağ said: “Indeed, everything changed when the administrators and school principles were replaced. The principles from the Education and Science Workers’ Union [a left-wing trade union of teachers in Turkey] were dismissed and the administrative cadre was completely replaced. Speaking about science was prohibited; we [leftist educators] were reported via hotlines. Our greatest guarantee was the 657 [Turkish Law on Civil Servants], which they eliminated through the state of emergency and decrees. They labelled us terrorists and fired from schools, terrifying the rest of the people.”
Acun Karadağ said that she was informed about her dismissal after the government issued an emergency decree: “I decided to start a protest in the same day. I started the protest in front of the school in the first day following the dismissal. There was a blockade of snipers and riot police in front of the school… as if I were a terrorist. Indeed, those precautions were not for me, but they intended to terrify the people there. However, no student or parents believed it. They knew me, they knew what sort of a teacher I was.”
POLICE ATTACKS
Acun Karadağ continued that police attack and detainments started during the protests, leading her to the experience of a heart disease and medical operation. She added that even her colleagues from school were punished on the grounds that they supported her struggle. Acun Karadağ’s struggle has been continuing for the last 251 days with the attendance of many other educators.
In reply to the question about the struggle of Nuriye and Semih, the two educators who started the hunger strike and jailed by the government, Karadağ said: “The action became well-known with the hunger strike of Nuriye and Semih. 37 people committed suicide after the emergency decrees.” Karadağ stated that the police took her into custody for 40 or 50 times during the protests.
THE RULE OF IGNORANCE
Referring to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement during the first anniversary of last year’s coup attempt, “They are criticising us for the dismissals. They can go and work in the private sector. It is not our business. The state will not feed them“, Acun Karadağ said: “In fact, anything is possible to utter. He [Erdoğan] became president without any university degree. What book did they read, what scientific researchers did they carry out, what did they do for humanity? They want us to be silent before all these developments, which I could not concede. They cannot compete with Nuriye and Semih, nor can they reach Nuriye and Semih’s level of culture, knowledge and love.”
‘WE WILL CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE’
In answer to whether any of her students supported her struggle, Karadağ said: My brave students visited me. When I told them they could also suffer, they said, ‘No’. Some of them came and cried, they looked terrified. That is why they [the government] attack us, they know what we could achieve if we cooperated.”
Talking about the AKP government’s imposition of house arrest, Karadağ argued that the government imposed such punishments because of its despair, adding that she continued her struggle even at the garden of her house. She has said that they will continue their struggle until they reclaim their job, concluding that they will continue to stand against the oppression of the government and police forces.
