International Reporting

Between 2016 and 2018, Turkey experienced a state of emergency following the attempted coup on July 15, 2016. During this period, thousands of Turkish professors, teachers, and union activists opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime were dismissed. Accused of having ties to terrorist organizations, they were marginalized in society. Awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, “Yellow Letters,” directed by Ilker Catak, delves into their fate and stirs painful memories among these former educators.

From our correspondent in Ankara, Can Irmak Özinanir, 44, blinks at the cinema exit. He just watched the film “Yellow Letters,” which he had been hearing about for days. This former academic was dismissed by decree in 2017 in Turkey. The film partly tells his story, the years of uncertainty, awaiting a favorable court decision. “Uncertainty has been the dominant feeling in recent years. Never knowing what will happen. It’s a period of prolonged uncertainty. There were times when I had great confidence because we had a lot of solidarity. But there were also times when I felt very alone and it turned into anger towards those around me,” says Can Irmak Özinanir.

“We don’t need the state to live, to survive” is a sentiment echoed by Mustafa Kemal Gözükun, 56, one of the academics dismissed by decree. After years of odd jobs, he was eventually reinstated three years ago. “When you’re a communist, you learn quickly. I learned a lot of things. For example, after being dismissed, I started a consulting firm. Later, I retook the entrance exams to Ankara University and joined the computer science faculty. I learned programming. I also learned a program called Da Vinci Resolve. I sat at my desk and learned. We don’t need the state to live, to survive,” he confides.

In the heart of Ankara, in the Kizilay neighborhood, the bar Zurafa opened just over a year ago. Managed by Veli Sacilik, 49, with his partner. Having lost his right arm during a prison stay, it’s the only job he can do today, he claims. Like many civil servants, he lost his job during the state of emergency. So when “Yellow Letters” was released, he took his 15-year-old daughter to see the film: “I took my daughter to see the film because she is now the same age as the character Ezgi in the film, and she has experienced very similar periods. I wanted her to understand what her father and mother have been through.”

Like other dismissed individuals, Veli Sacilik blames the European Court of Human Rights for abandoning them to their fate. The Court had stipulated that all domestic legal avenues must be exhausted before considering their cases.

For now, reinstatements are happening slowly. Some have returned to university, while others are still awaiting a decision from the Council of State. But they assert that no court decision will give them back those ten years of wandering.