Turkish media has reported more heart-wrenching human tragedies in Turkey under the oppressive rule of autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has been conducting a massive post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement.
It was reported on Saturday that a 5-year-old son of the imprisoned judge Fatih Canik has died in a traffic accident while on his way back from visiting his father in a prison in Turkey’s eastern province of Kahramanmaraş.
According to an advocacy webblog, Justice Held Hostage, judge Fatih Canik’s wife Hanife Canik and their unidentified kid made some 750 km from the western province of Afyon to visit him in a prison in Kahramanmaraş. On their way back to Afyon, the two had a traffic accident leaving the 5-year-old child dead. He was buried in a ceremony that was attended by his father as well on Friday.
Fatih Canik is only one of the thousands of judges the government has arrested as part of its post-coup witch hunt targeting the dissident voices in the country, particularly the alleged followers of the Gülen movement.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that three-month-old Betul A., who has been under arrest along with his jailed mother since April 27, 2017, has been suffering from oral thrush in prison, her grandfather told Turkish media. Baby Betul’s mother Melek A., who was a teacher at a school in İzmir which was closed by the government as part of massive government crackdown against the Gülen movement, was put in pre-trial detention in notorious Şakran Prison over her alleged links with Gülen movement.
Since her father, Ali İhsan A. is also in prison over similar charges, Betül A. has been kept under mother’s care in Şakran Prison.
“I don’t know what are the accusations raised against my daughter and son-in-law. We are not able to afford a lawyer either. My granddaughter’s medicine is finished. She risks being caught an infection through wounds in her mouth. She needs treatment,” her grandfather Mehmet K. told to Hurriyet daily. Aunt Zeynep B. has also said that Betul’s treatment was left uncompleted after she was taken with her mother.
Another rights violation case reported from Turkey’s northern province of Zonguldak. Detained over coup charges in late February 2017, Şenay Olgun Sağlam, a mother of one who is pregnant to her second child, has been suffering from weight loss due to poor dietary standards in prison.
It has been reported by Aktifhaber news portal and several social media accounts that Sağlam faces a risky pregnancy due to malnutrition in prison. Already suffered a miscarriage in the past, Sağlam was denied request for trial without arrest on May 2.
Mother of a 4-year-old kid, Sağlam was detained after a request from Onur Üzgül on Feb. 25 and arrested on charge of membership to the Gülen movement on March 2.
A military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 killed over 240 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement despite the lack of any evidence to that effect.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
According to a statement from Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ on May 6, 149,833 people have been investigated and 48,636 have been jailed as part of an investigation targeting the Gülen movement since the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey. (SCF with turkeypurge.com) May 21, 2017
