Turkish court reinstates TRT staff who was dismissed for commemorating revolutionary leader Mahir Çayan

A Turkish court has ruled for the reinstatement of a civil servant who was dismissed by the state-run TRT for commemorating the death anniversary of communist revolutionary leader Mahir Çayan and his comrades.

Tuesday July 11 2023 09:08 pm

Duvar English

A Turkish court has ruled that the state-run network TRT’s dismissal of a staff on the grounds that she commemorated in a tweet communist revolutionary leader Mahir Çayan and his nine comrades, was illegal.

The Istanbul 6th Regional Court ruled that Deniz Salmanlı be reinstated to her job and be compensated for her financial losses during the time that she was unemployed, ANKA news agency reported on July 11.

Çayan was the leader of the People's Liberation Party-Front of Turkey (THKP-C). On 30 March 1972, he was killed in an ambush by Turkish Military Forces with nine of the other members of THKP-C in Tokat’s Kızıldere village.

The Istanbul court said that Salman was among several Twitter users who commemorated the massacre known as “Kızıldere Incident” in tweets posted on March 30, 2021. The court said although THKP-C is still regarded as a terrorist organization, Salman’s tweet cannot be considered as evidence that she is linked to the THKP-C.

“In this case, the context of the evidences about the plaintiff does not constitute an element of strong suspicion which is necessary for her expulsion from civil service; in other words, it is understood that the mentioned issues are not sufficient to determine that she is linked to the terror organization,” read the court’s ruling.

What had happened?

On March 27, 2021, TRT held an exam within the institution with the participation of 1,260 staff. The participants were made to sit in a gender-segregated way, with women and men taking the exam in different halls.

TRT’s action was protested on Twitter on April 1 by members of the media trade union Haber-Sen. Just a day later, TRT launched an administrative investigation against Salmanlı, one of the executives of Haber-Sen, and looked into her past tweets.

On April 9, 2021, Salmanlı was suspended from her job based on a decree that gives state-run institutions the power to expel those “evaluated to have connections to terror organizations.” Four months later on Aug. 9, Salmanlı was expelled from civil service.

Topics Turkey TRT Deniz Salmanlı Mahir Çayan