Amnesty International’s new report analyzes Turkey’s two-year state of emergency, which has resulted in serious human rights violations impacting on hundreds of thousands of individuals from all walks of life. Among them are the almost 130,000 public sector workers who were arbitrarily dismissed and permanently banned from working in the public sector or even in their profession as a whole. These dismissals continue to have devastating effects on those dismissed as well as their families.
Amnesty International’s findings indicate that after more than two years since the first dismissals by emergency decree, dismissed public sector workers still do not have access to an effective remedy. The State of Emergency Inquiry Commission ostensibly set up to serve this purpose, is in effect a rubber stamp for the government’s arbitrary dismissals.