This week some court clerks, librarians and computer experts were among the 4,500 "dangers to the state" who were sacked by the Turkish Government.

It boosts the total to about 125,000 public servants already dismissed, and 40,000 arrested since last year's failed coup.

I have reported from Turkey in easier times, and wanted to go behind the staggering statistics to find out what it means for people affected.

The streets of Istanbul seem eerie. Secret police dot Taksim Square, once thronged by spirited crowds, and there is a chill as I head to meet an old contact.

Uniformed police stand guard in Istiklal Street, Istanbul. ( ABC New: Tracey Shelton )

Three years ago "Deniz", a 26-year-old philosophy graduate, was an active voice in Turkey's political reform movement.

Now she scans other cafe tables before she talks, fearful she may be arrested like hundreds of her colleagues, her friends, and her fiance.

"They have broken our resistance," she says sadly in a quiet corner. "It died after the coup, and now we have buried it."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ( AP: Yasin Bulbul )

Deniz watched as the unprecedented crackdown gathered pace. First it was military officers suspected of involvement in trying to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but it soon ballooned into a massive purge that still continues.

US-based Islamic cleric Fataleh Gulen is blamed as the instigator, and his followers, as well as teachers, journalists and judges — in fact anyone accused of holding independent views — have been sacked or arrested. There are frequent claims of torture.

A state of emergency continues, ceding extraordinary powers to the police, at the same time President Erdogan is tightening his grip on the country and seeking to increase his powers through constitutional change.

"If I post on Facebook," says Deniz, once a fearless activist, "then a day or two later they will come to take me away."

I last saw Deniz in 2014 hobbling on crutches after protests in Gezi Park calling for political reform. A police car moved slowly forward over her, breaking her leg in three places.

A sign reads "Continue to struggle for freedom and the future" in Gezi Park after protesters took control of the area from government forces in June 2013. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton )

But she wasn't cowed, still expressing her opinions unapologetically, she had spoken of a nationwide "awakening".

"At Gezi Park people were hopeful, brave, ready to sacrifice. We saw the power of our unity. We saw that we could win," she says now.

"But so did the Government. So they changed everything."

Her world is shattered. Her father and uncle, both university professors, were fired and now scratch a living selling fish by the river.

Deniz's fiance languishes in prison. He was a journalist working in an independent newsroom that was raided by police, and closed.

All but government sponsored media has been shut down, and internet sites are restricted.

As she spoke a man pulled up a chair conspicuously within earshot, in an otherwise empty cafe.

"Civil police," Deniz whispers. "They are everywhere now."

Police stand guard in Istiklal Street, Istanbul. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton )

Ordinary Turks ravaged by the purge are struggling for justice in a system that's rigged against them.

One exhausted mother now heads her extended family, and battles each day with no income.

"I am taking care of 13 people, nine are children," says the woman who prefers not to be named, from her home in the ancient city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast.

"All the men of the family are under arrest and we have no salary."

After the coup police burst into her home, and arrested her son, who has a young baby and four-year-old child.

Though unemployed for two years, he once worked for the Cihan News Agency which had alleged Gulenist links.

At dawn the following day, police returned and handcuffed her son-in-law Eyup, a geography teacher at the local high school, leaving her daughter, Asuman, inconsolable.

Stripped, blindfolded and tortured

Staff profile photo of geography teacher Eyup Birinci. ( Supplied )

"My husband kissed our children while they were sleeping, then the police just took him," she says.

Asuman's father, a retired school teacher asked the police why they weren't arresting terrorists, or thieves? A few hours later police came back and took him.

This middle class family of teachers is destroyed.

The family tried many times to deliver heart medication and clean clothes to their father in detention but were turned away.

When the youngest son, Yusuf, became angry, he was also arrested. And when another son flew in from France to help, he too was arrested for not carrying his identity card.

The women of the family have been fired, and their teaching licences revoked. The father's retirement salary was stopped the day he was arrested and all of their savings have been seized by the state. They are destitute.

This case has been documented by human rights activists, though they say it is not extraordinary.

"Unfortunately these cases are not the exception," says a spokesman for Turkey Purge, which works anonymously gathering information on the purges.

With no assistance from police, Asuman eventually found her husband Eyup in hospital, undergoing surgery for a ruptured intestine.

He had been stripped naked, blindfolded, and tortured.

Martyr's Bridge, renamed by President Erdogan to honour loyalists who died while resisting the coup last year. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton )

Eyup documented the police beatings in a statement:

"They beat me on the soles of my feet, on my stomach, then squeezed my testicles, saying they would castrate me," he says, going on to detail extremely brutal assaults.

After three weeks in hospital, he is now back in the over-crowded prison with the rest of the men in the Ozdemir family awaiting trial.

Getting a fair trial is doubtful. Lawyers and judges are still being arrested, often for defending or acquitting detainees. Those remaining on the bench have been galvanised into political loyalty.

"One judge was arrested while hearing a case," says Turkey Purge.

Another man, speaking in Ankara, detailed the 13 days of torture his 66-year-old father endured, including having his toenails pulled out. His trial is scheduled for February 20.

The man fears for his own safety, and knows many who have been arrested and tortured, including his brother-in-law.

"It's always the same. Everyone is taken for interrogation and tortured for at least the first few weeks," he says, wanting to remain anonymous.

"They break bones, deprive them of food and water, they use electric shocks, all kinds of horrors."

Supporters of Turkish ruling party AKP gather to hear a speech by the President \ in Antakya. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton )

Despite the crackdown, or perhaps because of it, President Erdogan's AKP party still holds a majority popularity. Millions are drawn to the increasingly authoritarian strongman.

"We need a strong leader," says store owner Ahmet Kapucuoglu.

"We voted for our President because we need someone powerful and fearless. We all stand behind him."

On the streets, a weakening economy and repeated terror attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish separatists has lead to political and economic anxiety.

Firefighters tackle a blaze after a double suicide bombing in Reyhanli, southern Turkey. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton )

Turkish political analyst Bayram Balci says "the nightmare" began in 2011, when the Government started severely limiting freedom of speech and criticisms of the ruling party.

Now the President is campaigning for an April referendum in his country of 80 million to grant him near absolute powers.

The possibility of him winning was recently listed as one of the "top 10 risks" for the world in 2017 by political consultancy Eurasia Group.

"Erdogan's drive to centralise powers will exacerbate many of the existing pressures on Turkey's domestic governance, economy, and foreign relations," the report concludes.

Analysts fear the country is becoming unstable, focusing on internal dissent while millions of refugees gather in border camps.

"Unfortunately because of the Syrian crisis, the development of authoritarianism and excessive polarisation of society, there is a risk of civil war," Bayram Balci says.

For Asuman's mother, nothing makes sense, all she can do is wait.

"How will the authorities ever be able to repair all this grief and trauma?" she asks.

"We have never done anything illegal. We are ordinary people trying to earn a living. What did we do to deserve this?"