4 CHP MPs Go on Hunger Strike for 24 Hours for Gülmen, Özakça

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Four Republican People's Party (CHP) MPs have gone on hunger strike for 24 hours to act in solidarity with academic Nuriye Gülmen and teacher Semih Özakça, who have been on hunger strike for 64 days with the demand that they be reinstated to their jobs.

CHP MPs Niyazi Nefi Kara and Mehmet Tüm joined the hunger strike at 9 p.m. which MPs Ali Şeker and Orhan Sarıbal started at 3 p.m.

Interviewing to bianet, Ali Şeker said that they cannot find anyone in charge to discuss their demands, and that they try to reach someone in charge to have the hunger strike ended without injury or death.

The solidarity hunger strike which began in the parliament continues at the Union of Municipalities.

About Gülmen and Özakça

Nuriye Gülmen was employed at Eskişehir Osmangazi University.

After her contract was not renewed, she brought a lawsuit and won. Seven months later, she started to work at Selçuk University. A day after she started her job, she was suspended from her duty based on the “FETÖ-PDY (Fethullahist Terror Organization-Parallel State Structure) investigation launched into her. She was discharged on January 6, 2017 via the Statutory Decree No. 679.

Semih Özakça was a classroom teacher at Mazıdağı Cumhuriyet Primary School in Mardin. He was discharged via the Statutory Decree No. 675 over “being linked with terror organizations”.

Gülmen has been in front of Human Rights Monument on Yüksel Street in Ankara to stage a sit-in since November 9, and Özakça since November 23.

On March 11, they declared that they would go on a permanent non—rotational hunger strike. They were detained on March 9 and they went on hunger strike in custody. (BK/TK)