Turkish state bank withholds aid from public servant sacked with state of emergency decree
State-owned VakıfBank has declined to make an aid payment to a former public servant sacked after the 2016 coup attempt in Ankara's mass layoffs attempting to "cleanse the state of coup plotters." Former public servants sacked with state of emergency decrees are often branded as suspicious individuals by the state as their layoffs are related to the coup attempt.
Duvar English
State-owned VakıfBank has declined to make a payment to an earthquake survivor who had been granted state aid because she had been laid off from her job via state of emergency decree following the failed coup attempt of 2016.
A state clerk laid off amid Ankara's mass layoffs to "cleanse the state of coup plotters" in 2016, Ayşe Dabak qualified for state aid when her home was severely damaged in the Oct. 30, 2020 earthquake in Aegean İzmir.
"İzmir Municipality put 10,000 liras of aid in VakıfBank for her to withdraw, but VakıfBank didn't pay her saying her ID number was 'objectionable,'" pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu said in a tweet on Jan. 28.
"She called me crying. She asked me 'Aren't we citizens? Aren't we human? Our home is destroyed and this is how we are treated,'" Gergerlioğlu said in parliament about his interaction with Dabak.
The mistreatment of those laid off via state of emergency decree is a common practice in Turkey, as their dismissal from their posts were related to the coup attempt, effectively branding them as suspicious persons.