Ankara branch of KESK, organized a protest with banners reading, “We will resist against expulsions and firings. We will win.”  The crowd chanted, “We will only win by resisting!”

 

The protestors held a minute of silence for the academician Mehmet Fatih Traş who took his own life after being denied employment by universities for signing a public letter calling for peace titled, “We will not be a part of this crime.”

 

Yasin Durak, an academician fired from the University of Ankara for signing the same letter, spoke at the event and reminded the crowd the threat by the Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan where Erdogan had said, “Whether they are professors or research assistants, they will pay the price.”  Then, referring to the suicide of Traş he asked the president, “Is this the price you wanted to extract?”

KESK, the confederation of Public Workers’ Unions organized two separate protests to call attention to the politically motivated firing of the teachers and the faculty.  The speakers pledged they will never accept the government decree to get rid of scientists demanding peace in the country.  The speakers also emphasized that the academicians demanded free education and health care as well as justice in taxes.  Referring to a scandalous event where more than 60 boys were sexually abused by teachers and care givers in a religious government care facility, when the only person punished and sent to prison was the journalist who reported the crimes, a speaker said the teachers were being fired because they said “no” to child sexual abuse and to rape.   Public workers speaking at the event also said, “We choose not to sit silently on the sidelines but decided to resist.  We salute all public workers who also chose to resist.”

 

The demonstration to support the expelled teachers and faculty was held at the Narlidere Democracy Plaza.  The protesters chanted, “No to firings, no to government decrees, we will not accept, we will not surrender.”

 

A parliamentarian representative, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, from the Kurdish progressive HDP party also joined the demonstration.  Necla Akgün, the president of the Izmir branch of Eğitim-Sen, the Union of Education Workers, reminded that more than 4, 460 public workers had been fired with the latest government decree. The toll on KESK members totaled 3,115 members. 

 

Other demonstrations in Diyarbakir, Kayseri, and Düzce also protested the government’s decree to fire all those who do not surrender to government’s ideology.

27th of March

 

(Source: ETHA)