Governor of Uşak dismissed after her spouse criticized Gezi verdict

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Governor of Uşak Funda Kocabıyık was dismissed from his position today (April 27).

Kocabıyık was assigned on temporary duty under the Ministry of Interior, the ministry said in a statement that did not specify the reason for the governor's dismissal.

However, the decision came shortly after the spouse of Kocabıyık criticized Monday's (April 25) court verdict in the case concerning the 2013 Gezi Park protests, where one defendant was sentenced to an aggravated life imprisonment and seven others were sentenced to 18 years in prison on charge of "attempted overthrow."

Hüseyin Kocabıyık, who himself served as an MP of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) between 2015 and 2018, made comments criticizing the AKP on Twitter.

"What kind of fate is ours? We have criticized the CHP's election fraud in 1946 for all our lives. We did a similar thing in 2019," he wrote, referring to a controversial decision to repeat the local elections in İstanbul.

"All our lives, we have cursed the judges and prosecutors who hung [former PM Adnan] Menderes, now the likes of them give similar unscrupulous rulings," he continued.

"The judges and prosecutors of unlawful verdicts make us unable to defend all the sacred values that we devote our lives to. Those who give these verdicts are destroying everything we have accomplished. The authority who can say 'stop' to destruction is clear, and we want his help." (HA/VK)