‘I Want My Job Back’ Protest Sentenced to 37 Days in Prison
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Discharged from public service by a Statutory Decree in 2017 and staging sit-in-protests in Düzce to demand her reinstatement, Alev Şahin has been sentenced to 37 days in prison on the ground that she did not comply with the Düzce Governorship's ban on her protest.
While her prison sentence has been changed into a fine, Şahin has stated that she will appeal against this verdict.
What happened?
Working for the Environment and Urbanism Provincial Directorate in Turkey's northwestern province of Düzce since 2011, architect Alev Şahin was discharged by the Statutory Decree no. 679 on January 6, 2017.
Şahin has been staging sit-in protest on the square at Spor Street in Düzce with the banner "I want my job and bread back" since January 30, 2017.
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On the first anniversary of her protest, Şahin told bianet: "Everything is changing and transforming. I was on my own a year ago. I could not really predict the people's reaction, it would take some time to explain them the rightfulness of the resistance. When I look back now, I think that I am glad to resist and share this resistance with the people of Düzce. Because what started as a one-person protest has now become the people's protest in Düzce. "Even when it is winter and snowing, some people bring me tea in a thermos or they bring me plastic bottles filled with hot water so that my hands will not get cold. When it is raining, a person comes and leaves her umbrella to me... I do not know how I can explain enough the good sides of this people. "When I tell them about the injustice and unlawfulness done to me, especially my fight for my bread spreads to all segments of society. Even though it is a conservative city giving 85 percent of votes to the government, they have taken my side in my fight for my bread. While they were sceptical about my rightfulness in the beginning of my protest, it has become a proof for my rightfulness that I have not given up protesting I am now discussed at their homes, on their dinner tables." |
(AS/SD)
