To united nations working group on arbitrary detention

Union membership

Unions are among those civil society organizations that people close to the Gulen Movement had founded according to the rules and regulations in effect at the time.¹⁹ The Aksiyon-İş Union was established in education but soon expanded to include other industries and became a confederation of unions representing labor in various sectors. Facing new competition that became popular in a very short period of time, Memur-Sen, a pro-government union, was furious to see a new player in the union field. This issue has become one of the major areas of conflict between the Gulen Movement and Erdoğan. After the corruption and bribery investigations of December 17/25, 2013, unions close to the Movement came under increased pressure from the government. the Erdoğan Regime shut down all 19 unions, federations and confederations with decree-law no. 667. Administrators and members of the unions also faced detention and arrest in large numbers.²⁰
Overnight, the Turkish government declared legally operating unions that it had allowed to be established and for whose members it had paid union membership fees to be criminal organizations and their members terrorists. Being a member of one of the unions has become grounds for conviction. if you have taken December 17/25 as a milestone and called participation in institutions close to the Hizmet Movement support for terrorist activities, including some organizations that are legitimately operating under statesupervision, that is a contradiction in itself. For example, Aktif Eğitim-Sen.continued its legitimate activities after December 17/25, Moreover, the government paid the membership fee onbehalf of the members that is required to join this union. Would it be reasonable to present a relation with an organization that is seen ‘legitimate’ by state as evidence of a relationship with a terrorist organization?²¹

The Cihan-Sen confederation, consisting of unions that were established by public employees, had 22,104 members in July 2016 according to government data. 50 A total of 18,015 of these members were under the roof of Aktif-Sen, which was established in the education sector. Today, all of these members are at risk of being charged with membership in a terrorist organization. Thousands of teachers have already been arrested and face prosecution just because they were members of these unions.²²

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