ISTANBUL, Turkey - Dozens of employees of Istanbul’s municipality have staged a sit-in before the institution after they were fired on charges of being linked to terrorist organizations.
With the vast majority being Kurds, the employees were fired for having participated in events previously held in Turkey to mark Halabja’s chemical attack and the Roboski massacre.
"In 2010 … I participated in the commemoration of the Halabja Massacre. At that time, a criminal case was opened, but the case was completely closed in 2017,” Faruk Gorken who works at the municipality told Rudaw’s Omer Sonmez on Monday.
They have been staging a sit-in since late July.
“However, the mayor used this case as an excuse and fired me,” Gorken claimed.
Halabja’s chemical attack and the Roboski massacre are among the crimes committed against the Kurds.
Around 5,000 people were killed when Iraq’s former Baath regime dropped mustard onto the city of Halabja, while the Roboski massacre marks the killing of 38 Kurds smuggling cheap petrol and cigarettes from Duhok’s Zakho when Turkish airstrikes hit the Kurdistan Region’s border in December of 2011.
The employees demand to return to their job and claim that the decision of terminating their contracts is “politically motivated.”
The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB), which has more than 86,000 employees, has on several occasions defended its decision saying that state regulations “forced” them to do so, adding the employees had been fired according to the law.
In December of last year, the Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu claimed that there were "557 terrorists in Istanbul municipality.” The city’s Mayor Ekram Imamoglu immediately responded to the claim, saying they will launch an investigation into the matter.
Another employee alleged that Imamoglu had fired them “out of fear of losing his post.”
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