Local Public Education Director Threatened Local Newspaper

The Provincial Directorate for Public Education of Tunceli (eastern Turkey) announced to have launched an investigation into threatening e-mails sent to the local Tunceli Emek newspaper by Süleyman Çakmak, Manager of the Provincial Public Education Branch.

The local newspaper run by three women had received the e-mails sent under the alias of "striking cobra" ('vurucu kobra') after publishing the article entitled "Public education and a strange education" written by Dilek Karakoyun. Karakoyun had criticized the public education system in her article.

The article read as follows: "Such weird things were happening under the reign of the governor of the time. The ones who should raise the level of education were altogether preparing the ground for rapidly dumping the level of education down. The same people felt free to use the resources of Tunceli for their own purposes. It is clear that they did not learn the lesson from these experiences. To the contrary, in order to stop this course of events a vision within a certain plan should be brought up, goals and targets should be set and their realization should be monitored after the performance has been indicated by measuring techniques..."

Who are you to criticize our education!

Right after the publication of the article on 6 August 2009, the newspaper received an e-mail in the evening hours of the same day sent from the address [email protected]. It read:

"Be clear! We got crazy, our envy made us explode, just say it. How come that even in a province like ours there are executives who are R.E. teachers or who are foreigners, even though there just a few with three to five teachers. Just say it, they should be from us a hundred percent, they should be form our origin and believe in our religion... Just tell that we cannot bear it, that we are full of envy. You are the real fascists! You are racists. You have it in your subconscious and you might not even be aware of it. I feel sorry for you! And I am laughing at your funny stand since you put yourself under the evil eye of the public!"

A municipality employee with the initials İ.E. from Samsun at the Back Sea coast sent another e-mail to the newspaper in the afternoon of 15 July 2009 using a made-up hotmail.com address as well. The message also contained insults and a threat: "Is this your business? Of course not. There is only one thing you will do and that is to be smart and keep quiet, otherwise..."

Çakmak and İ.E at court on 11 May

The investigation carried out by the Tunceli Public Prosecutor's Office revealed that the msn address 'striking cobra' belongs to Çakmak as Manager of the Provincial Public Education Branch.

The law suit filed by the local newspaper with Çakmak and İ.E. on the grounds of insult and threat in the e-mail messages will start on 11 May. This was announced by the Directorate of the Provincial Public Education after Ali Ekber Ertürk from Akşam newspaper had brought the story to the national agenda with his article "The 'striking cobra' turned out to be the Public Education Branch Manager".

Teachers' union urges for Çakmak's deposition

Subsequently, the Tunceli Branch of the Education and Science Workers' Union (Eğitim-Sen) demanded in a written statement to depose Çakmak from office.

The union delegation was not able to speak to Education Manager Haydar Yurdakul since he was not present at the prefecture. The delegation claimed that the name "striking cobra" stems from former Governor Mustafa Yaman. They called current governor Mustafa Taşkesen to initiate the necessary measures. (EÖ/VK)