A medical secretary who was dismissed from her job in a massive purge in the aftermath of a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and died of a cerebral hemorrhage while she was pregnant a year later has been reinstated to her job, according to a labor union.
Zeynep Binen was one of more than 130,000 civil servants who were expelled from public service during a state of emergency declared following the coup attempt.
Binen, who was suffering from lupus, a disease that occurs when the body’s immune system attacks own tissues and organs, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in October 2017 when she was six months into her pregnancy.
She was working at a public hospital in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır before she was dismissed from her job by a government decree.
According to a tweet from Ses Amed, a Diyarbakır-based labor union representing healthcare professionals, Binen has been reinstated to her job by the State of Emergency Procedures Investigation Commission (OHAL Commission), which was established in January 2017 for appeals against measures taken by the government during the two-year state of emergency declared after the abortive putsch.
The Turkish government, which holds the faith-based Gülen movement responsible for the coup attempt, launched a massive crackdown on its alleged and real followers following the coup attempt.
Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs, they were also prohibited from working again in the public sector and getting a passport. The government also made it difficult for them to work formally in the private sector. Notes were put on the social security database about dismissed public servants to deter potential employers.
There have been many other former public servants who have been reinstated to their jobs after they died.
The last example was Yurdal Gökçe, 41, a former police officer who was reinstated in December one month after his death in a work accident at the construction site where he was working to make ends meet.