Cleansing Turkey Our World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

far fringes of Istanbul. Pupils throughout Turkey are singing the

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

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

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

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

the state. And it is starting fresh, with only

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

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

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

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

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

collective government. More than 900 formally private

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

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

moving forward confidently now that the threat of democracy has been

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

links to it. President Erdogan claimed he masterminded the

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

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

calls a virus. Now those alleged infiltrators are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Islamist government. He is a troublemaker who opposes the

military campaign against Kurdish rebels and has tried to sue both

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

tradition, where a religious brotherhood could never have taken

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

been suspended from their jobs for allegedly supporting terror. They

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

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

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

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

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

just by suspended teachers but also by parents and students.

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

teachers. This region gets some of the best exam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

their jobs and have even become social outcasts because of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

conspiracy behind the coup and more risks of people dismissed or

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

village, everyone has the same complaint. The whole district

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

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

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

Hundreds of alleged Gulenist firms employing hundreds of thousands of

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

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

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

wrongly accused can apply to special government complaint centres but the

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

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

dismissals. no such evidence against the history

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

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

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

Fighting for reinstatement gets ever harder as new state of emergency

measures restrict the work of defence lawyers and shutdown of a

more independent media, particularly in Kurdish areas. Democracy is

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

eradicate all opposition. They are trying to remove people

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

purge is meant to safeguard democracy, primarily against

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

lonelier.