Trade Unionist Teacher Killed

The trade union Egitim-Sen has announced that its Deprem Sarikas, a high school literature teacher and member of the union, was killed in a "planned and professional manner".

The union suspects that he was murdered for his progressive, democratic views. The union called the District Directorate of Education, the police department, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Interior and the governor's office to investigate the case.

Attacked two days before

Sarikas was murdered on 24 May in Ankara on his way to school. Two days before he had been attacked by a group with knives.

Sarikas had brought cases of racist attacks at schools and universities to the attention of teachers' boards before and had lobbied for prevention of such attacks.

The union spoke of a "normalisation" of violence in Turkey in general, and at schools. This meant that murder became easier to commit and that both teachers and pupils were in danger. (NZ/TK/AG/EÜ).