Fatih Karaahmetoğlu, a former police officer who was dismissed from his job by a government decree last year, was found dead in an apparent suicide at his home in the northwestern Turkish province of Bolu on Sunday, Turkish media outlets reported.
Karaahmetoğlu, 26, was found hanged on a natural gas pipe in his house in the Sümer neighborhood of Bolu.
An investigation has been launched into the death.
Following his expulsion from his job, the former officer reportedly began to study guidance and psychological counseling at Abant İzzet Baysal University in Bolu.
Karaahmetoğlu was dismissed over alleged links to the Gülen movement, which is accused by Turkish authorities of being behind a failed coup last year. The movement denies the allegations.
Forty-six victims of Turkey’s massive post-coup purge of state institutions have committed suicide, according to a report drafted by an opposition deputy on the third anniversary of the declaration of a state of emergency after the failed coup.
Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Deputy Chairman Veli Ağbaba prepared the report exposing the social consequences of the two-year-long state of emergency during which the government issued 31 decrees that affected the lives of thousands.
Turkey dismissed some 150,000 civil servants with the decrees over their alleged ties to terrorist organizations.
In addition to losing their jobs, purge victims were denied passports, and according to several reports have been struggling to find jobs as they were stigmatized by a broader smear campaign.
Turkey established a state of emergency commission in 2017 to consider appeals from purge victims; however, according to the CHP deputy’s report, 93 percent of the applications have been rejected.
The state of emergency, declared shortly after the coup attempt, remained in effect until July 2018.
