In Turkey, a Hunger Strike Divides a Country in Turmoil
In 1990, Turkish authorities built a monument to human rights in the center of the Turkish capital. Since May 22, nobody has been able to reach it.
First, the police encircled it with a fence. For a time, they blocked the street it stands on. At one point they even shut a small square nearby that provided access to the street.
These moves carry obvious symbolism at a time of widespread rights abuses in Turkey, but the government also has a more practical goal in mind.
For over six months, a tiny group of former teachers and civil servants — a few of the more than 100,000 people who have been purged from their jobs during Turkey’s continuing crackdown on dissent — had assembled at the statue each day to ask for their jobs back.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/europe/turkey-hunger-strike-erdogan.html
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