On July 26, Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) protested unjust dismissing and imprisonment of two educators on hunger-strike, Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça, in front of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The police attacked the demonstrators after TKP members issued a press release.
Following the police attack, more than 10 TKP members have been detained.
In the statement, the TKP stated that working class and human dignity stood against the ruling Justice and Development Party and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who think that he could reconstruct this country as he wishes.
TKP underlined in the statement that “dignity and labour are now the same. Those who do not defend the labour will lose their dignity as well, and only those making a living through their labour can live with dignity.”
Describing the struggle of Nuriye and Semih as a struggle for labour and dignity, TKP warned the government that the AKP was obliged to reinstate all labourers who have been dismissed in unjust and unlawful ways while stating that the government cannot win this war against labour.
The detained TKP members were released on the same day.
Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça have been unlawfully dismissed due to the statutory decrees enacted by the ruling AKP under the state of emergency in 2016. Gülmen and Özakça had started a hunger strike with a slogan, “I want my job back”. The two educators have been on hunger strike for 139 days, and their medical conditions have deteriorated day by day.
