How a Vindictive Erdogan Rids Himself of His Perceived Enemies

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t have to imprison or kill them directly. He has other ways to destroy the lives of those he considers to be his enemies. After the attempted coup in 2016, Erdogan fired tens of thousands of military men, civil servants, lawyers, judges, university faculty and rectors, and others, falsely accusing them of being members of the Gülen movement that supposedly was behind that coup attempt, when their real crime was that they were secularists opposed to Erdogan’s re-Islamizing of Turkish society.

Here is the story of one of Erdogan’s victims: “Civil servant dismissed over alleged Gülen links and stripped of state-paid medical care dies,” Turkish Minute, January 2, 2026:

Ramazan Çınkır, a former civil servant who was dismissed by an emergency decree over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement and stripped of state-funded medical treatment despite a severe chronic illness, died on Thursday, drawing renewed attention to the human cost of purges that took place in Turkey following a 2016 coup attempt.

Çınkır, 45, was dismissed from his job at the provincial education department in Adana province under an emergency decree issued after a failed coup on July 15, 2016. He suffered from Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH), a rare and life-threatening blood disorder that required regular treatment. After his dismissal state coverage for his medication was halted, and his treatment was halted. He was officially assessed as 96 percent disabled under Turkey’s medical disability classification, a level that qualifies as loss of working capacity.

Çınkır was removed from public service on the grounds that he had deposited money in the now-shuttered Bank Asya and was a member of a teachers union alleged by authorities to be affiliated with the Gülen movement. He was later tried on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization” but was acquitted.

In a recent interview on KHK TV, a YouTube channel dedicated to the stories of people dismissed by emergency decrees, Çınkır said the withdrawal of medical care and social assistance had left his family in extreme hardship. “They have effectively abandoned us to death, hunger and poverty,” he said.

He is survived by a wife and one child.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle….

When investigations into corruption at top implicated not just Erdogan, but others close to him, including family members, and his closest associates, he proceeded to fabricate charges against Fethülleh Gülen, whom he painted as being behind what Erdogan described as the “false” findings of corruption. Gülen left Turkey for the safety of Pennsylvania, and spent the rest of his life there.

A decade after the coup attempt, Erdogan is still punishing those he considers his enemies, labelling them all as Gülenists. Those who were fired after the failed coup in 2016 could never again obtain jobs in the public sector. And it has been very difficult for those who lost their jobs in the private sector for being “Gülenists” to again be hired, as any possible employer would discover, by googling, the circumstances of their dismissal, and would not want to risk Erdogan’s ire by hiring such a person.

The easily preventable death of Ramazan Çınkır, a Turkish man that a state under the control of a vindictive despot deprived of medical insurance and hence of medical care, should be kept in mind, as Trump shows every sign of being impressed by Erdogan, a cruel and evil man harboring dreams of pan-Islamic glory, who is no better than Maduro, and much more dangerous.