Forty-six victims of Turkey’s massive post-coup purge of state institutions have committed suicide, according to a report drafted by an opposition deputy on the third anniversary of the declaration of a state of emergency after a failed coup in 2016.
Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Deputy Chairman Veli Ağbaba prepared the report exposing the social consequences of the two-year-long state of emergency, during which the government issued 31 decrees that affected the lives of thousands.
Turkey dismissed some 140,000 civil servants with the decrees over their alleged ties to terrorist organizations.
In addition to losing their jobs, purge victims were denied passports, and according to several reports have been struggling to find jobs as they were stigmatized by a broader smear campaign.
“That the government didn’t take any steps to solve the problems of purge victims drove them to the point of despair,” the report said.
Turkey established a state of emergency commission in 2017 to consider appeals from purge victims; however, according to the CHP deputy’s report, 93 percent of the applications have been rejected.
“The state of emergency has officially ended, but practically it’s still in effect. It has been adopted by all institutions,” the report concluded.