Duygu Sahlar loved her job as a public kindergarten teacher — until the morning she found she'd been removed from duty overnight, with no explanation.

Sahlar fell victim to the mass dismissal of government employees, particularly those in the education sector, in the aftermath of the failed coup in July 2016. Some 150,000 civil servants, including more than 40,000 teachers, have been removed from their positions by legislative decrees under the country’s emergency rule, allegedly to fight terrorism and to remove the supporters of what the ruling party calls the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization.

The decree that removed Sahlar and others from their jobs gives no specific reason for the dismissal. When she saw her name in the decree, Sahlar could not think of any motivation. She had never been the subject of a criminal investigation, let alone prosecuted for any crime. She could think of nothing from her past that would link her to a terrorist group.

“I woke up one morning and learned that I had been dismissed,” she told Al-Monitor, her voice still trembling at the memory. “The most difficult part was explaining to my 5-year-old students that I had to leave immediately. I could see that they all thought, ‘Our teacher is leaving us,’ and I had no words to explain to those small kids why I had to leave. I simply said I was moving to another city.”