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Cleansing Turkey

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For one violent, Celtic might this summer, Turks violated tanks to

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attend defeat. At least 250 people died. Democracy was saved and the

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country rejoiced. Now the hunt for the conspirators has cost more than

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100,000 people their jobs. The government says it is cleansing

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Turkey of a virus, but is it also creating a state of fear? They are

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trying to eradicate all opposition. What's the real purpose of Turkey's

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cleansing and gone too far? Monday morning at a school on the

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far fringes of Istanbul. Pupils throughout Turkey are singing the

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national anthem at this moment. But here, there's something called. --

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odd. This is a huge school, with very few kids. Most of the

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classrooms are empty. The school's not new, it has just changed

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management. What was a private institution has been taken over by

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the state. And it is starting fresh, with only

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the youngest age group. Like all the staff, the headmaster is new too. So

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this is the park that has seen good here to commemorate the defeat of

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the Ku? -- the plaque. And the school has a new identity, it has

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been renamed after the policemen killed by soldiers on the night of

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July the 15th, when senior military officers tried to overthrow Turkey's

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collective government. More than 900 formally private

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schools like this have been taken over by the state. We've been

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showing this school as a shining example of the new coup Turkey,

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moving forward confidently now that the threat of democracy has been

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removed. But of course this place was by people now considered enemies

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of the state. By people whose leader is regarded by the day's pupils as a

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terrorist. I am Turkish and they will be forever, but I think he

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isn't. He is always doing something bad for Turkish people, because of

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that I hate him. He is a 75-year-old Islamic preacher living in

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self-imposed exile in the united states -- United States. The

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graduates of his many schools have formed a powerful old boys network,

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what some now call a parallel state. He condemned the coup and denies any

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links to it. President Erdogan claimed he masterminded the

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conspiracy. Now the Ministry of Education in Ankara, where many

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Gulenists works, is leading an attempt to cleanse Turkey of what he

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calls a virus. Now those alleged infiltrators are

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being purged on a massive scale. 50,000 were sacked in just one

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decree published online. On the list are teachers and academics, like

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this history lecturer in eastern Turkey, and people from every walk

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of life. This has profession after profession, so many areas of public

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life. Secretaries, typists, inspectors, nurses, doctors,

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midwives, Cook. Cook. The list goes on and on. Yes. This is

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extraordinary. In total, 253. You see my name. Associated professor.

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Department of history. Now he is an excess are shipped professor and his

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life is falling apart. -- X associated. Under investigation for

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links to Gulen, he can't go abroad, access his bank account or get any

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other academic job. And what's the evidence against him? The bookie

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owns by Fethullah Gulen. Before, a friend of mine had seen that book in

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my office and told me, oh, remove this book, it is dangerous. I told

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him, that's ridiculous, I'm an academic. To make it more

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ridiculous, he says he was using quotations of the book to Twitter

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against Gulen. You can just search my name and Fethullah Gulen on

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Twitter and you will see posts bear from two years ago. He thinks Gulen

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is a dangerous extremist. I have underlined his words. So they

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accused you of being a Gulenist, on the strength of finding one book by

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him in your university offers? Yes, that's the only evidence they can

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talk. -- talk of. He is a socialist and a pierced

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against everything Gulen stands for. But he is also against Turkey's

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Islamist government. He is a troublemaker who opposes the

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military campaign against Kurdish rebels and has tried to sue both

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President Erdogan and is on university bosses. He thinks that's

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the real reason he has been sacked, but he is very much at home in this

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left-wing town, which the state has always found troublesome, or the

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people certainly aren't Gulenists. It is hard to imagine anywhere in

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Turkey less likely to have been involved in the coup that this town,

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the only place in a country where the Gulenist movement failed to

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establish any kind of organisation. A town with a strong secular

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tradition, where a religious brotherhood could never have taken

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root. And yet since the coup all these local teachers and more have

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been suspended from their jobs for allegedly supporting terror. They

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are all members of the left-wing, pro-Kurdish teachers posture we

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union. -- teacher's union. They vowed to go on protesting until they

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are reinstated. Their kids are backing them all the way. It is a

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real mark of the rebellious spirit of this town that the daily protest

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here has now been going on for several weeks and is attended not

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just by suspended teachers but also by parents and students.

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There is a long tradition of solidarity here and of respect for

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teachers. This region gets some of the best exam

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This region gets some of the best exam results in Turkey.

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the total number of Turks caught in the post to cleansing has reached

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105,000, including police soldiers and judges and nearly 35,000 have

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been arrested. Some may well be guilty but it's hard to believe that

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so many people, or even a fraction of that number, can have known about

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a conspiracy which had to be as secret as possible. Thousands who

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protest that they, or relatives, are reticent to have sought advice here,

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at the Ankara headquarters of Turkey's main opposition party, the

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CHP. This nurse, married to an hour forced technician, can't get over

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the humiliation of his arrest as a suspected Gulenist. She says there

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is no evidence against her husband and does not want to give his name

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but the family are now shunned. Many seeking legal advice here don't

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even know who has accused them. I've met so many people here whose

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world has suddenly collapsed. They've lost their livelihoods,

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their jobs and have even become social outcasts because of

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accusations, usually anonymous, but they were in some way involved in

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the coup. One woman even shouldered me her children's friends were not

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allowed to come play any more and most of these people are reluctant

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to be interviewed because they think that will make it even harder to get

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justice. This woman is a brave exception. She's packing clothes to

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take to her brother, a military officer arrested after the coup

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attempt. He is in jail and like others arrested will be tried in due

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course but she doesn't think the process will be fair and she is

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daring to publicise his case. To seek justice for them, she has come

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to Ankara to launch a public campaign. The stage of emergency

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begins Solidarity form. Some people, she says, have been

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sacked, just because their child went to a Gulen School because they

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kept money in a Gulen bank. Or because they scored a high exam mark

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when some Gulenists are said to have cheated. The sense of injustice is

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too much to some to be out. But the event is not well attended. The

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mainstream media do not cover it at all. More and more, they repeat the

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government line and they are talking about enemies, not victims. Every

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day, you open the paper here and there is more stories about the

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conspiracy behind the coup and more risks of people dismissed or

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arrested and just in this one, going down the list, there is 60 people

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taken into custody in Antalya, nine employees of the Ministry of foreign

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affairs arrested in Ankara, 13 people taken into custody in Konya,

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in the middle of the country and the list goes on and there will be more

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tomorrow, and the day after. Even Bharat in the countryside, hundreds

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of miles from Ankara or Istanbul, the hunt for Gulenists is taking its

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toll. Leaving crops to shrivel in the fields. Ismail as a cucumber

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farmer. But the canning firm that bought all his produce was taken

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over by the state. Because it is said to have belonged to Gulenists

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and four months, the new trustee didn't make any payments. Up in the

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village, everyone has the same complaint. The whole district

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depended on that single canning firm. Part payment for an earlier

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crop has now been made that they have had to tighten their belts.

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And you can find places all over Turkey is suffering like this.

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Hundreds of alleged Gulenist firms employing hundreds of thousands of

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people have been taken over by the state. Back at the Ministry of

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Education in Ankara, civil servants are anxious to. Nobody knows who may

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be dismissed next. Teachers or others who say they have been

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wrongly accused can apply to special government complaint centres but the

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state doesn't expect that many people will be reinstated, certainly

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not the 28,000 state school teachers who were purged in the first week of

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dismissals. no such evidence against the history

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lecturer but he does not think you will get his job back any time soon.

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Now, everyone is afraid of one day becoming a Gulenist because it is

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easy. You do not need evidence and those processors may take years.

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Fighting for reinstatement gets ever harder as new state of emergency

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measures restrict the work of defence lawyers and shutdown of a

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more independent media, particularly in Kurdish areas. Democracy is

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suffering. Now closing down TV channels. They are trying to

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eradicate all opposition. They are trying to remove people

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from the state, from universities, from media. But the States is the

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purge is meant to safeguard democracy, primarily against

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Gulenists. Isn't there a real atmosphere can of beer now in the

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country? People looking all bull -- over their shoulder all the time,

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stating, "Am I about to be denounced simply in order to settle some

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personal score?" Most Turks still haven't got over the massive shock

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of July 15. They talk -- they thought military uprisings belonged

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to history but this one became -- came frighteningly close to

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succeeding. This is just one reminder of how many ordinary people

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paid with their lives to defeat the coup and many Turks think it is

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their sacrifice and heroism that the world should be remembering and not

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making too much fuss about people who have been wrongfully accused in

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the course of the subsequent investigation. The public mood is so

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hostile to alleged traitors that Hilal, the sister of the arrested

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officer, does not want to reveal his name or show his picture but she is

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determined to go on campaigning to have exonerate him and others.

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It is likely to be a long struggle and the signs are, it will get ever

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lonelier.

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