Turkey jails academics on hunger strike over losing their jobs in post-coup purge

A pair of Turkish educators are facing months or even years in prison after being arrested for launching a hunger strike in protest at being sacked from their jobs in a widespread purge following last year’s failed coup attempt.

Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca have not eaten in 77 days and their hunger strike has become a rallying point for opponents of the increasingly authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The pair were arrested this week and a court has now ordered that they be held in custody until they can face charges of “membership of a terror organisation” - charges that both academics strongly deny. 

The tens of thousands of arrests in Turkey since the failed coup attempt against Mr Erdogan last summer means there is an enormous backlog in the courts system. Ms Gulmen, 35, and Mr Ozakca, 28, are likely to wait six months to a year before their case is heard.      

Arrest warrants were issued for another 139 government employees in Ankara on Wednesday on suspicion of links to the Islamist Gulen movement, which Mr Erdogan blames for the coup attempt.  

Mr Ozacka, a primary school teacher, and Ms Gulmen, a university lecturer, have been surviving on lemon and saltwater and sugar solutions since they began their hunger strike in March. They vowed to continue striking in prison. 

"We will continue our fight until we are victorious," said Mr Ozakca.

The pair were among around 100,000 people sacked from public sector jobs in the wake of the coup. Since then they have appeared regularly at protests against the state of emergency laws that came into force in the wake of the coup attempt. 

Looking thin and drawn, the pair would go out in public in surgical masks in the hope of reducing the chance of infection to their weakened immune systems. 

After publicity of the hunger strike grew, prosecutors abruptly accused the pair of being members of a terrorist organisation, an accusation that has commonly leveled in Turkey since the coup attempt. 

During a preliminary hearing on Tuesday night, prosecutors asked the pair if they had been paid to carry out the hunger strike and accused them of trying foment unrest like the Gezi Park protests that began in 2013.

Turkey has a history of force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike and supporters of Ms Gulmen and Mr Ozakca fear that authorities may try to make them eat if it looks like they are in danger of dying and becoming “martyrs” for the opposition. 

The European Court of Human Rights has noted several incidents in which Turkish prisoners were force fed, saying that force-feeding can in some cases amount to torture. 

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