Years after coup, purged civil servants feel trapped in Turkey
More than 130,000 dismissed civil servants continue to fight for their jobs and basic rights in post-coup Turkey, including those acquitted of their original charges.
ISTANBUL — Leyla Simsek Rathke was acquitted of terror-related charges in September, but she continues to struggle to regain basic rights such as the freedom to travel, work and access social services.
Simsek Rathke, a former academic at Marmara University in Istanbul, was dismissed under a state of emergency in February 2017 in mass purges that saw more than 130,000 civil servants lose their positions following a 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.
