The two educators who were dismissed, along with several other public servants, through an unlawful decree of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in February and imprisoned in May have left behind the 200th day of their hunger strike.
Nuriye Gülmen, a literature professor, and Semih Özakça, a primary school teacher, have left behind the 200th day of their hunger strike after their dismissal through one of the statutory decrees of the AKP government in February 2017.
The government had dismissed several progressivists and leftist public servants on the pretext of fighting the religious sect of the US-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, who was one of the actors of the failed coup in July 2016 and the ex-ally of the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, AKP government until recent years.
Esra Özakça, the wife of Semih Özakça, who is also a dismissed hunger-striker primary school teacher, had said, "Semih has lost a lot of weight. When I tell this to people, it does not have much effect but he weighed 86 kilograms, but he weighs 53 now. That is to say, he lost 33 kilograms. Professor Nuriye has already been too meagre", in an interview to soL News. She stated that the health problems of the two educators had been worsening.
She also told that since the beginning of her marriage with Semih Özakça in 2014, they could only spend half of this period together in the same house. She had also suffered from the unlawful executions of the AKP government and finally dismissed.
The 28-year-old educator, after working in a low-paying job in public education, could finally find a full-time job in a village in the province of Mardin, in southeastern Turkey. She had been dismissed from the job and went on a hunger strike after her husband. After 120 days of her hunger strike, she now weighs 46 kilograms.
She also told soL News that more than 240 protests were organized to support the two hunger-striking educators and the police had attacked all of them. She also suffered from the police violence and her arm is still in pain after a police commander twisted it. The police commander had threatened her “Do you want me to break it?”. Now she wakes up her arm in pain every morning.
Esra Özakça mentioned that the two educators Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça only wanted their jobs back. "Why such cruelty?" she reacts. She tells that her students were very sad after her dismissal and only asked: "But why?".
Last month, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a request by the two teachers to order Ankara to release them on health grounds.
