(As of February 4, 2021)
There has been an increase in the number of suspicious deaths in Turkey, most of them occurring in prisons and detention centers, where torture and ill treatment are routinely practiced. In the majority of cases authorities classified these deaths as suicides without any effective, independent investigation. Suspicious deaths have also taken place beyond prison walls amid psychological pressure and threats of imprisonment and torture, sometimes following the release of suspects or just before their detention.
SCF believes the true number of deaths during a state of emergency declared in Turkey in July 2016 is still unknown. Moreover, it remains concerned over reports that the government runs secret and unofficial holding centers for abductees with a total disregard of the right to due process under the law.
SCF has compiled cases of suspicious deaths and suicides in Turkey in the following list in a searchable database format. It also issued a comprehensive report on their cases, which can be accessed at https://stockholmcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Suspicious-Deaths-And-Suicides-In-Turkey_22.03.2017.pdf
| Name | Profession | Date of Death (DD.MM.YYYY) | Cause of Death | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Ferhat Daş | Sergeant | 15,07,2016 | Suicide | It has been claimed that Sgt. Ferhat Daş committed suicide after refusing to obey the order of his commanding officer to open fire on people during the coup attempt. However, serious contradictions emerged after an examination of eyewitness accounts and video footage. The family is hoping the prosecution's investigation will reveal the truth and exonerate Sgt. Daş. Spc. Sgt. Ibrahim Donat told police during his interrogation that on the night of July 15 Daş had shouted, "We are not traitors," in response to the mob saying, "Aren't you a citizen of this country? This is a coup," and then committed suicide by discharging his own gun under his chin. Donat then said: "After the suicide, we opened the door of the tank, and a citizen took our commander from the tank and brought him to the hospital in an ambulance. Other citizens took us to a police car near there, and we surrendered to the police." This incident, which is recorded similarly in police records, was related quite differently in a report by the state-owned Anadolu news agency. AA cited the opinion of Kaya Aydın, a relative of Ferhat Daş, who explained the suspicious suicide as follows: “They went out for a military exercise. The commander ordered them to open fire on civilians. He said he couldn't. Then the commander pointed a gun at him and said, 'I will shoot you.' Then he said, 'I'd rather die by the bullet of my own weapon than by a bullet from yours.' He did not open fire on the civilians, and he shot himself with his own gun." The details in the camera footage taken that night near Sabiha Gökçen Airport just before his death contradicts this account, however. According to the footage, there was a big crowd around Daş, who was standing on top of a tank. Daş is seen talking to these people for a while with his hands up. The crowd, brandishing a Turkish flag, started to shout, "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," and surrounded Daş. Then the video is interrupted. It is certain that Daş did not use his weapon inside the tank before the crowd surrounded it. When the body of Sgt. Daş was brought to his hometown of Geben in Kahramanmaraş province for his funeral, no official imam was assigned by the government’s Directorate of Religious Affairs for the burial service on the grounds that he was a “traitor.” He was buried by the municipality with the help of a bulldozer at midnight. The family was traumatized by the experience and faced accusations that their son was a coup plotter. Daş, who was declared a hero by the official news agency, was also posthumously discharged from the Turkish military. Suspicions surrounding his death still have not been cleared up. As he most likely died after the intervention of the crowd, the possibility of a lynching is highly likely. The prosecutor’s investigation into the incident is still continuing. |
 | Murat Tekin | Cadet | 15,07,2016 | Lynching | Murat Tekin (21), a second-year air force cadet, was killed on the night of July 15, 2016 when his throat was slashed, presumably by an angry mob, according to an account provided by his sister that was backed up in part by an autopsy report. Graphic video footage showing a soldier lying on the Bosporus Bridge in a pool of blood was widely circulated on social media in the aftermath of the coup attempt. While many said the soldier’s throat was slit because of his involvement in the coup, pro-government media outlets and social media users either refused to accept the allegation or claimed that the video and accompanying images were from a terrorist incident. Mehtap Tekin, the grieving sister, told the Çağdaş Ses news platform that an autopsy of the body of her slain brother proved that her brother was killed with a knife, apparently while surrendering to the police. “We are taking you to the most realistic military exercise that you have ever seen,” commanders at the military school told the cadets, according to Mehtap Tekin. Tekin had studied at the Işıklar Military High School in Bursa for five years and then enrolled in the Air Force Academy in Istanbul, his sister said, adding that neither Murat nor his classmates was even aware of the coup attempt until they were in the middle of it. Mehtap said friends of her brother told her about the night and how they were convinced they should gather on the Bosporus Bridge. Some cadets were told that eight suicide bombers had been on the Istanbul streets, and some were told that the president had been arrested, according to Murat’s friends. “With traumatic lesions and stab wounds detected on his body, the person in question was found to be killed due to pressure on his throat and mechanical asphyxia,” Mehtap quoted the autopsy on her brother as saying. “I asked one of my doctor friends to help me understand the report more clearly, and she said: “He was battered, stabbed and asphyxiated before he was killed. Someone taped his mouth and someone put pressure on his throat. This is not the kind of trauma that is caused by only one person,” Mehtap said. The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) called for an investigation into the brutal killing of the cadet. |
 | Ragıp Enes Katran | Cadet | 15,07,2016 | Lynching | A third-year cadet at the Turkish Air Force Academy was lynched by an angry mob despite the fact that he was unarmed on the night of the coup attempt. Ragıp Enes Katran, 21, was among those cadets who were ordered by their superiors to participate in a "military exercise" and thus were brought to the Bosporus Bridge. Twelve days after the failed coup, Katran’s family members found his severely beaten body at the İstanbul Institute of Forensic Medicine. They were not even given a coffin by the officers in charge. His family took his body to Gaziantep, although a proper funeral was not allowed to be held. The local authorities told them that "four family members can be present to bury his dead body." |
 | Segvan Yaman | Politician | 18,07,2016 | Suicide | A member of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) board in the Uludere district of southeastern Şırnak province, Segvan Yaman (42), who was incarcerated in the Rize Kalkandere L-Type Prison, reportedly committed suicide on July 18, 2016. Yaman was alleged to have attempted to take his own life twice before. Yaman was sent to Rize from Şırnak with several other detainees in June. Arrested as part of an investigation into the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that encompasses the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Yaman had been in prison for nine months. Yaman's elder brother E.Y., who was seeking legal help from the Human Rights Association (IHD), said: "I do not believe my brother committed suicide. The prison administration called us and said my brother had died by suicide. I called him last Tuesday. He said he was fine and comfortable in Rize. Why did he take his own life? My brother was a person who often got arrested, and he sometimes had problems. But he was not the kind of person to kill himself. " Yaman's family filed a complaint with the help of the IHD. It has since been discovered that similar suicides were reported to have occurred in Rize Kalkandere Prison. |
 | Hasan Hayri Alp | Businessman | 19,07,2016 | Heart attack | Hasan Hayri Alp, a businessman who was jailed in Sincan F-Type Prison as part of an investigation into the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), reportedly died of a heart attack. The president of Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD), Öztürk Türkdoğan, who held public officials responsible for the death, emphasized that violations of rights in prisons were increasing with the implementation of a state of emergency declared after the July 2016 coup attempt. |
 | Hasan Yücel | Lieutenant colonel | 20,07,2016 | Suicide | Service Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Hasan Yücel (42) was one of the officers assigned to General Staff headquarters on July 15. It has been claimed that Yücel committed suicide on July 20, 2016 in his office at the headquarters. It was also claimed that while two friends were present, he pointed his gun to his heart and pulled the trigger. Journalist Murat Çelik wrote about Yücel's suicide, claiming that Yücel was sad and regretted having failed to stop the plotters of the coup. He kept saying, "I could not prevent it, could not prevent the coup plotters [from carrying out the attempt]," and then he took his own life. According to opposing claims, Yücel died as a result of severe torture in the interrogation room that was illegally installed at General Staff headquarters. Yücel, who also served in the Special Forces Command, had numerous medals and citations for distinguished service. |
 | Necmi Akman | District governor | 20,07,2006 | Suicide | District Governor of Manisa-Ahmetli Necmi Akman, removed from office in the aftermath of the coup attempt on an informant’s letter, had allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a gun belonging to his security guard, a police officer identified only by the initials A.G. His case was brought to the attention of the Turkish Parliament when a letter written by Akman was read aloud in the general assembly. In his letter to his wife and daughters Akman said: "I am confident of myself. I always remained loyal to the president, the commander-in-chief, to the government. But now, if my existence is a threat to my country, my flag, my commander-in-chief and my government, then my duty as district governor is to remove this threat." There was no official funeral ceremony for Akman, who is survived by a wife and two children. A prosecutor launched an investigation into the alleged suicide, the results of which were never disclosed to the public. |
 | Mutlu Çil | Deputy police chief | 20,07,2016 | Suicide | Deputy Police Chief Mutlu Çil was one of 900 police officers who were discharged from the Ankara Police Department immediately after the coup attempt. Çil was assigned to Ankara from the intelligence department after major corruption investigations in December 2013 that incriminated President Erdoğan, his family members and his business and political associates. He was discharged from service on the grounds of "illegal wiretapping" in 2014, and he was held in prison for four months and then tried. Çil, who was appointed to the Altındağ Police Department in 2014, was assigned to the Güdül Police Department after he was released. It was claimed that Çil, who was taken into custody for a second time, was suffering from depression and that he committed suicide, saying, "They could not accuse me of membership in the parallel structure," in the Güdül Governor’s Office building, using his government-issued gun. |
 | Muhammet Mertoğlu | Chief of police | 22,07,2016 | Suicide | Police Chief Muhammet Mertoğlu, who was appointed to the Ulus district of Bartın province after the coup attempt, allegedly committed suicide, saying "You suspect me, too?" during a search of his office on July 22. Mertoğlu succeeded Police Chief Levent Mustafaoğlu, who was detained on charges of involvement in the coup attempt. Speaking at his funeral, Serhat Tezsever, chief of police in Karabük, said, "It was a painful accident" and "We are going through difficult times, but the strong people of this country are at their posts. Our brother police chief was also an officer assigned there. He was sent there to serve the country, the nation. Unfortunately, he died as a result of a painful accident at the beginning of his service. May God put him in the highest, most eminent position. As a state, we stand by him; he was martyred during his service." The outcome of the prosecutor's investigation into this suspicious death is unknown. |
 | Levent Önder | Lieutenant colonel | 22,07,2016 | Suicide | The suicide of Lt. Col. Levent Önder, who was deputy chief of staff at the 3rd Commando Brigade in southeastern Siirt province, must also be included among the suspicious deaths. Önder was alleged to have suffered from depression because he had been unable to prevent events in Siirt during the coup attempt and committed suicide with his own pistol. Önder was appointed to replace Col. Alican Erkilitlioğlu, who was arrested for alleged involvement in the coup attempt. The governor of Siirt issued the following statement regarding the suspected suicide: "Lieutenant Colonel Önder suffered from depression because he had been unable to get over the July 15 coup attempt and the ensuing events. Önder felt inadequate for not being able to prevent the plans of the terrorists. Önder voluntarily gave testimony as a witness to the prosecutor's office and ended his life in the wake of the crisis he had experienced." |
 | Halil Gök | Police officer | 22,07,2016 | Suicide | Police officer Halil Gök, who worked at the Akçakoca Police Department in northwestern Düzce province, was responsible for monitoring regional traffic. He allegedly committed suicide when he learned that he was going to be discharged after the coup attempt. Gök reportedly went to the basement of the Regional Traffic Supervision Station building, held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. An investigation was launched into the suspicious death. |
| İsmail Çakmak | Lieutenant colonel | 23,07,2016 | Suicide | According to official records, Lt. Col. Ismail Çakmak, who was arrested on charges of involvement in the coup and put in Silivri Prison, committed suicide by hanging himself with a bed sheet in his cell. According to another account, Çakmak ended his life by hanging himself in the stairwell of the prison block. Çakmak had reportedly been tortured and subjected to strip searches during detention when he refused to admit to the charges against him. His relatives shared the records of Çakmak’s statement given to police on the night he was taken into custody. Çakmak, who served as battalion commander in the 23rd Motorized Infantry Regiment, stated that he had been sent to the Kartal Bridge together with his contingent on the orders of Regiment Commander Col. Ömer Faruk Köse on July 15, who said that “there is an incident.” Çakmak stated in his testimony: "When we came to the Kartal Bridge, there were no citizens gathered there. We also warned people coming in that 'there is a notice of an incident.' Subsequently, the regiment commander arrived with four lieutenants and one major. He said to me: 'It's a coup d’état. They will inform you. Let's follow the instructions.' I told the commander, 'I'm not part of that business. I do not accept such an order. I did not get into this business.' I ordered my troops to go back. However, a part of my contingent that could not be transported to the barracks due to a roadblock went to the Maltepe military lodgings, and some of them went to Tuzla. I returned to the barracks in a civilian vehicle. When we went to the Kartal Bridge, we took our shields and batons with us, not our weapons. I certainly did not know about an event like a coup. I will never accept those charges. They said, 'There is a disturbance; intervene in it.’ We got back when we learned of their real intentions. I want to be released." |
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 | Mustafa Törer | Businessman | 28,07,2016 | Heart attack | Mustafa Törer, a furniture maker, was taken into custody as part of an investigation into the Hizmet Movement in Iskenderun after the July 15 coup attempt. Törer, 52, who was detained for three days, was formally arrested on July 27, 2016. He reportedly died from a heart attack in İskenderun Prison a day later. An autopsy conducted by the Adana Council of Forensic Medicine determined the cause of death to have been a heart attack. Hatay Governor Ercan Topaca provided a different account of the death of Törer, a prominent figure in the city. Topaca stated that Mustafa Törer died due to a diabetic coma he had lapsed into in prison. Törer was allegedly subjected to ill-treatment and torture while in custody. |
 | Hidayet Meral | Police officer | 30,07,2016 | Suicide | Hidayet Meral (32), a police officer assigned to the Bartın Police Department, allegedly committed suicide in front of the police station. Meral served as a bodyguard to District Governor Selçuk Şakar in the town of Ulus in Bartın province. Şakar was detained as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement after the coup attempt. Following the arrest of the district governor, Meral was was on guard duty in front of the police station when he allegedly shot himself in the head. He was married and the father of one, and his wife was pregnant with their second child. An investigation was opened into the police officer's alleged suicide. The chief of police of the same district, Muhammad Mertoğlu, was also announced as having committed suicide. |
 | Vedat Savlu | Businessman | 2,08,2016 | Suicide | According to the official account, businessman Vedat Savlu, who police attempted to take into custody at at his house at 6:30 in the morning on Aug. 2, 2016 as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement in Isparta, fell from the fourth floor while trying to escape the police. Savlu, who was taken to Şifa Hospital by ambulance, was later declared dead. Police also claimed that Savlu had thrown a suitcase from the building. It was claimed that Savlu had committed suicide by jumping rather than falling from the balcony of his apartment. In video footage, he was seen to have fallen, landing on the concrete below. |
 | Gökhan Açıkkolu | Teacher | 5,08,2016 | Diabetic coma | Gökhan Açıkkolu, a teacher who was taken into custody on July 23, died on Aug. 5, 2016, the 14th day of his detention in the custody of the counterterrorism unit of the Istanbul Police Department. On the fifth day of his detention Açıkkolu, who was diabetic, was taken to the emergency ward. Even though his chronic illness was detected, he continued to be kept in custody. His family maintained that Açıkkolu was tortured and subjected to ill-treatment. The abuse even continued after his death when authorities wanted to bury him in a special graveyard called the “Traitors’ Cemetery,” which was established after the failed coup. The authorities did not want to allow religious rituals to be performed for Açıkkolu. His father Ayhan Açıkkolu said his diabetic son could not stand what he had lived through in detention and died from a heart attack. The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office announced that an investigation had been launched into Açıkkolu's death. They confirmed that Açıkkolu was taken to the hospital twice during his time in detention. |
| Muhammet Özmen | Laborer | 9,08,2016 | Suicide | Muhammet Özmen (50), whose salary was seized as part of an investigation into the Hizmet Movement in the province of Zonguldak, reportedly committed suicide. It is not known whether an investigation was ever opened into the death of Özmen, who lived in the village of Bayat in the Ereğli district. | |
 | Ahmet Beşli | Chief of police | 10,08,2016 | Suicide | According to official statements, Police Chief Ahmet Beşli (39) committed suicide in front of his colleagues. Beşli, who did not want to be taken into custody in the Belen district of Hatay, killed himself with his own gun in the presence of police officers. Beşli was taken to a private hospital near the station in an ambulance called by relatives. His family claimed that the incident was not a suicide, but that he was killed during interrogation at the police station. |
| Ömer Çubuklu | Prison guard | 1,09,2016 | Suicide | Ömer Çubuklu, a prison guard who was arrested as part of an investigation into the coup, allegedly hanged himself with shoelaces and a drawstring when he was put in in a solitary cell in the İzmir No.2 F-type Prison. The prison guards found his lifeless body hung from a window frame in the cell at 1:30 a.m. An investigation was launched into his death, since shoelaces and drawstrings are prohibited in prisons. | |
 | Mustafa Güneyler | Teacher | 2,09,2016 | Suicide | Mustafa Güneyler (50), a teacher who had been fired as part an investigation into the Gülen movement in the town of Osmanlı in Bilecik province, reportedly committed suicide. It was claimed that Güneyler fell into a depression after being dismissed from his job by decree-law no. 672 on Sept. 2, 2016. He allegedly killed himself by turning on a gas cylinder at home. |
 | Bedih Kurucan | Laborer | 9,09,2016 | Suicide | Bedih Kurucan (30), convicted of the murder of his wife in April 2010 in the town of İnegol in Bursa province, reportedly hanged himself in the Muğla E-type Prison on Sept. 9, 2016. |
 | Seyfettin Yiğit | Prosecutor | 16,09,2016 | Suicide | Seyfettin Yiğit (50), a public prosecutor in Bursa, was found hanging in a bathroom in the Bursa E-Type Prison. He was detained for alleged links to the Gülen movement. It was claimed that Yiğit committed suicide by hanging himself with a clothesline in the bathroom of his ward on the night of Sept. 15, the fourth day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, after he met with his family during visitation hours. Engin Altay, deputy chairman of the main opposition CHP parliamentary group, said the death of prosecutor Yiğit should be investigated. "There is doubt in our minds. We think Seyfettin Yiğit was murdered." Yiğit's family also claimed that the prosecutor's death was a murder, not a suicide. Yiğit was incarcerated on July 20, along with other judges and prosecutors. He was married and the father of four. His body was found at 5:30 a.m. by fellow inmates in his ward. Yiğit's autopsy was performed at the Bursa Council of Forensic Medicine. Yiğit's wife, Ayşe İlknur, testified that her husband was not a person who would commit suicide. Yiğit's 16-year-old daughter, Ayça Yiğit, said her father had nothing to do with the Gülen movement, either, and in fact was opposed to Gülen. She argued that it was murder. Ayça Yiğit stated that her father Yiğit wrote many letters from prison after he was arrested. "We met with my father because of Eid al-Adha. He was quite well. He was not in bad condition. He told us he had written us letters and that he would send them slowly. My dad did not write those letters at the last moment. There were three or four of them. A letter was written to President Erdoğan. We are waiting for the letters. We haven't gotten them yet. But we do not believe they were suicide notes." In the following days Ayşe İlknur said she glanced at letters that were put in the case file at the prosecutor’s office. Yiğit said he wanted his wife to take good care of the children in the letters, which went into the investigation file. Yiğit wanted their children to study well in school and help their mother. He wanted her to ask around for a person in Kağıthane who was a friend in common with President Erdoğan. He also wrote that he liked Erdoğan very much. His wife also noted that although her husband allegedly committed suicide on Sept. 15, one of the letters was dated Sept. 19. Obviously he would have sent the letter that day, suggesting he was not planning suicide at all. “The words in the letter do not sound like those of a person who is planning to take their own life,” she said, adding that her husband had advised many things to her and the children for the future. “We expect these letters to be given to us in the coming days," she said. The investigation into the death of the Seyfettin Yiğit was still ongoing at the time of writing. |
 | Ali Derebaşı | Teacher | 19,09,2016 | Suicide | Ali Derebaşı, director of the Barbaros kindergarten in the central province of Kayseri, reportedly committed suicide after his wife, who was also a teacher, had appeared in court on charges of membership in the Gülen movement and on Sept. 19 was suspended from her job at the school he directed. Derebaşı came to the kindergarten building at 6:30 in the morning and ended his life by hanging himself. Crime scene investigation teams and homicide detectives reportedly found a note from Derebaşı that said: "Death is at the door. It is not clear when death will come." It has been claimed that Derebaşı, married and the father of three, was suffering from a psychological disorder. |
| Cegerxwin (Cigerhun) Akdeniz | Student | 28,09,2016 | Fire | Cegerxwin Akdeniz (17) reportedly died in a fire started by juvenile prisoners at the Şırnak T-Type Prison on Sept. 28. His father, Atilla Akdeniz, was convinced that his son had been executed in prison. He said his son, who had been reported to have died in the fire, was detained in the southeastern town of Cizre nine months earlier. Atilla stated that his son and his friend Seyit Rıza Şaran (16) were alone in the cell when the fire started. Reminding that guards patrolled the ward 24 hours a day, Akdeniz said: "How could they have been burned? My son's entire body was totally burned. This is savagery. My son reportedly died from smoke inhalation, but his body was incinerated." The father claimed that his son was executed by state forces. "Every time we went to see our son they said there was a curfew in the city, so we could not see him. ... They put my son in a cell and then burned him to death." An investigation into the death in the prison was launched. |
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| Seyit Rıza Şaran | Student | 28,09,2016 | Fire | Seyit Rıza Şaran (16) was seriously injured in a fire in the Şırnak T-Type Closed Prison and was taken to Şırnak State Hospital. He reportedly died from his injuries on Oct. 3. An investigation into his death was opened. Lawyer Büşra Demir, a member of the Human Rights Association, claimed in a report on the prison that the pressure on political prisoners in the facility increased every day and that activities such as social events, sports and such had been prohibited since July 15, 2016. She stated that a juvenile prisoner who had previously been in the same ward with Cigerhun Akdeniz and Seyit Rıza Şaran knew of the incident but did not want to talk about it because he was afraid. |
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 | Emrah Oğuz | Police officer | 3,10,2016 | Suicide | Emrah Oğuz (32), a police officer in the Bayburt Police Department and one of tens of thousands of police officers who were dismissed from their jobs, reportedly committed suicide on Oct. 3, 2016. Oğuz allegedly ended his life by shooting himself with his gun in the garden of the station, where he had gone to hand in his gun. |
 | Adem Tıraş | Police officer | 4,10,2016 | Suicide | Adem Tıraş, a 26-year-old police officer who was suspended over alleged links to the Gülen movement, reportedly took his own life with a shot to the head. He had been working at the Akdeniz Police Department in southern Mersin province before his suspension. His alleged suicide took place a day after he turned in his government-issued gun and badge. Tıraş was rushed to Toros State Hospital by people who heard the gunshot and found him wounded in a park. |
 | Önder Irmak | Sergeant major | 10,10,2016 | Suicide | Air Force noncommissioned officer Sgt. Maj. Önder Irmak (39), who was taken into custody by the Eskişehir Police Department over alleged links to the Gülen movement, reportedly committed suicide by drinking cleaning supplies he took from the bathroom during his detention. However, there are no chemicals kept in the the bathrooms of detention centers, including cleaning supplies. The prosecutor's office opened an investigation into workers Ö.Ç and M.Y., who allegedly left the disinfectants in the bathroom, and into the police officers working in the counterterrorism unit. The Eskişehir Police Department claimed in a written statement that serious allegations had been leveled against Irmak as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement. Irmak's family believes the incident was not a suicide, but death as a result of torture. |
 | Hasan Taştan | Imam | 11,10,2016 | Suicide | Hasan Taştan (53), an imam who was reportedly suffering from depression, committed suicide after his son M. Taştan was arrested as part of a crackdown on the Gülen movement in Hakkari province. Taştan, who served as the imam of the Zeytinli Garden Mosque in the Turgut Türkalp neighborhood of the Toroslar district of Mersin, allegedly died by suicide in the house next to the mosque after night prayer. |
 | Enver Şentürk | Prison guard | 13,10,2016 | Suicide | Enver Şentürk (31) was suspended from his job as a guard at the Adıyaman E-Type Prison over alleged links to the Gülen movement. He reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the stairwell of the eighth floor of a 10-story building. Şentürk was married and the father of one. |
 | Dursun Kaynar | Truck driver | 13,10,2016 | Suicide | Dursun Kaynar (49), who was detained for the crimes of murder and causing bodily harm, committed suicide in the Kütahya E-Type Closed Prison. Kaynar had injured Ömriye Uçar and killed her son on Oct. 6, 2015 in Kütahya province. He had been detained for a year and was alleged to have suffered from a psychological disorder and committed suicide by hanging himself. |
| Mehmet Ali İnal | Laborer | 20,10,2016 | Suicide | Mehmet Ali İnal (47), who was detained in the Sivas E-Type Closed Prison, reportedly hung himself with a belt in his ward. An investigation was opened into his death. İnal was detained on July 12 for allegedly injuring bus attendant G.Y. | |
 | Hakkı Topal | Police officer | 21,10,2016 | Suicide | Hakkı Topal, a police officer who was suspended from duty on Oct. 4 in Çorum over alleged links to the Gülen movement, allegedly committed suicide. He reportedly hanged himself in a forested area near Seydim Lake. Çiğdem Topal, his widow, stated that she called the police when she could not reach her husband on his mobile phone. Police and gendarmes found Topal's body hanging from a tree. The prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the death of the police officer. His wife said, "You have finished us, my husband was not guilty." Topal was the father of two. |
 | Cahit Korkmaz | Police officer | 25,10,2016 | Suicide | Cahit Korkmaz (44), a police officer in Bursa, reportedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his own gun out of fear of being investigated over alleged links to the Gülen movement. Korkmaz, an 18-year police veteran, worked in the archives section at the Çekirge Police Department in the district of Osmangazi. He reportedly went to the recreation hall and fired one shot at his heart after he prayed. Colleagues who ran to the room at the sound of the gunshot reportedly found Korkmaz lying in a pool of blood. Korkmaz, who was taken to the hospital, was unable to be saved. Korkmaz reportedly asked a friend just half an hour before the incident: "Are they including me in the investigation of FETÖ because I pray? Will they put me in prison? Will my family perish? I'm afraid I'll be hunted because of ByLock wiretapping." Korkmaz reportedly left this note to his family: "I love you very much, you have nothing to do with me committing suicide. Only fear has brought me to this point." |
 | İrfan Kızılarslan | Colonel | 5,11,2016 | Suicide | İrfan Kızılarslan, a colonel who was head of the Kastamonu Gendarmerie Regional Command, was arrested on July 17 as part of an investigation into the coup attempt. Kızılarslan, who was subsequently dismissed from the Gendarmerie, allegedly committed suicide in his prison ward at the Tokat T-Type Çamlıbel Prison. Kızılarslan's body, which was found early in the morning, was taken to Tokat State Hospital for an autopsy. It was claimed that Kızılarslan committed suicide by hanging himself from a window with a shoestring. An investigation was opened since security precautions are very strict in the prison, and shoestrings are forbidden there. However, the outcome of the investigation is not known. |
 | Zeynep Epli | PKK-PAJK militant | 7,11,2016 | Suicide | Zehra Epli, held at the Gebze Prison for Women, ended her life by setting herself on fire in protest of the arrest of Kurdish politicians. Lawyers from the Libertarian Lawyers Association and Arif Yılmaz, co-chair of the Istanbul Solidarity with Prisoners Association, went to the facility to obtain information from the authorities. Epli's cellmates told the lawyers that "Epli set herself ablaze to protest operations targeting Kurdish lawmakers and the government's security policies." According to the Milliyet newspaper and the IHA news agency, Epli ended her life by hanging herself with a headscarf. Epli, who was convicted of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), reportedly took her own life early in the morning, and guards called 112 after finding her body. A 112 emergency services team performed 45 minutes of heart massage on Epli, but she could not be saved. The prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the incident. |
| Burak Açıkalın | Engineer | 8,11,2016 | Suicide | Burak Açıkalın, who was detained in an F-type prison in the Hacılar district of Kırıkkale, allegedly committed suicide on Nov. 8, 2016. Açıkalın was among a number of engineers employed by the intelligence branch of the police department and was detained after July 15 on charges that he leaked information to a government whistleblower on Twitter known as Fuat Avni. It was claimed that he was tortured after refusing to sign a prepared confession. | |
| Muharrem Bahçıvan | Laborer | 11,11,2016 | Suicide | Muharrem Bahçıvan (29) reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the Aydın E-Type Prison, where he was imprisoned for assault. Bahçıvan had previously been in the open section of the prison but was put in the closed section because he had previously escaped and was captured. An investigation was launched into the death of Bahçıvan, who would have completed his jail sentence in January 2017. |
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| Mehmet Emin Doğan | 18,11,2016 | Suicide | Mehmet Emin Doğan (29), who had been incarcerated in the Tekirdag F-Type Closed Prison for six years, reportedly committed suicide. A brother of Doğan's also died suspiciously in Batman Prison. The prison administration explained that Doğan committed suicide because of "psychological problems." Doğan's family, suspicious of this statement, filed a criminal complaint. | ||
 | Behçet Emdi | Teacher | 19,11,2016 | Suicide | Behçet Emdi (43), a teacher who had previously been suspended and was arrested on Nov. 17 on coup charges, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the Karabük T-Type Prison. Emdi was reported to have taken his life by hanging himself with a shoestring attached to the window in the prison bathroom at 7:00 a.m. on the morning of July 19. Emdi was found dead by other prisoners. Emdi’s body was brought to Ankara for autopsy. He was the father of two and worked as a social studies teacher in the Safranbolu Misak-ı Milli Secondary School. Emdi’s wife, a nurse, had previously been fired as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement. |
 | Hayrullah Tamtürk | Police officer | 21,11,2016 | Suicide | Hayrullah Tamtürk (40) was dismissed from his job while working as deputy police chief in Bilecik province. He had served for 17 years before he was purged as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement. The deputy chief took his wife and children to visit his father-in-law in the town of Karasu in Sakarya province. He allegedly hung himself when he was alone in the house. The family found his body. |
 | Ergülü Yıldız | Teacher | 24,11,2016 | Suicide | Ergülü Yıldız (47), a teacher who was suspended from his job after the failed coup attempt, allegedly committed suicide on Nov. 24, Teachers Day. Yıldız was working as an assistant principal at an elementary school in the Sungurlu district of Çorum province. He was first suspended and then taken into custody on alleged links to the Gülen movement. He was later released under judicial supervision and was obliged to check in at the police station every week. Relatives who had not heard from him for some time called the police. When officers broke into his apartment in the Fatih district of Istanbul, they found his body hanging from the ceiling. |
 | Ünal Takmaklı | Businessman | 29,11,2016 | Heart attack | Ünal Takmaklı (77), a businessman who voluntarily testified to the Aydın Nazilli Police Department even though there was no investigation into him after his two brothers were taken into custody on coup charges, was arrested on July 28. He was the founder of the Uğur Deep Freezing Plant and known for his philanthropic and charitable donations. He died on Nov. 29, 2016 reportedly as a result of a heart attack in the Menemen T-Type Prison, where he was being held. A prosecutor launched an investigation into his death. |
 | Hasan Hüseyin Can | Police officer | 1,12,2016 | Suicide | Hasan Hüseyin Can (46), a police officer who was working at the motor vehicle registry and inspection unit in Hatay province, was taken into custody over alleged links to the Gülen movement. He was later released but was required to check in with the police department on a weekly basis. Can, a father of two, allegedly shot himself in the head while home alone. |
| Beytullah Akil | 11,12,2016 | Suicide | Beytullah Akil, who was incarcerated in Şırnak T-Type Prison, allegedly ended his life by hanging to protest prison conditions and pressures on the Kurdish people. Akil had been arrested three years earlier and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Human Rights Association (İHD) lawyer Gülseren Yoleri said: "We were worried about the allegations of torture that we heard. Our last visit was to Şırnak Prison. A young prisoner was paralyzed because of torture. Although there were traces of torture on his face, the doctor reported that he was healthy. After this meeting, Akil committed suicide to protest the torture." |
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| Mehmet Oldum | Police officer | 21,12,2016 | Suicide | Mehmet Oldum (34), a police officer, was taken into custody over alleged links to the Gülen movement. He allegedly hung himself in his grandfather's house in the village of Ardıç in the Osmancık district. Oldum’s dead body was found by his brother. An investigation into his death was launched by the prosecutor's office. |
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 | Ökkeş Karaca | Military | 23,12,2016 | Killed in a military clash under suspicious circumstances | Non-commissioned Sr. Sgt. Ökkeş Karaca, who was serving in the Special Forces, was killed on December 23, 2016 in an ISIS attack during Operation Euphrates Shield, carried out by the Turkish army in Syria. The 25-year-old Karaca would have been tried as a member of a terrorist organization had he survived the operation. Just like Infantry Cpl. Fatih Saylak, Karaca was mentioned in an indictment, part of investigation no. 2017/2619 pursued by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office. The names of both Saylak and Karaca were included in the indictment based on the depositions of informants. According to those depositions Saylak and Karaca were affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement, a group that is extremely critical of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who designated the movement a terrorist organization and launched a witch hunt against its adherents. At a time when the investigation was still ongoing despite the depositions, Karaca was included in Operation Euphrates Shield and was sent to El Bab, where he was killed in the ISIS attack. Some ex-officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces under decree-laws during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 suggested that military personnel previously profiled by the Turkish intelligence agency were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan is one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing the names of some 9,000 people in the Turkish military who had been profiled. The people on the list are either being gradually dismissed from the military or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the armed forces when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at various times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to Syria after their travel bans were lifted.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist for Oda TV who knows the Turkish Armed Forces well, military officers who were profiled were used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who are killed are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to carry out special duties assigned by the military, and after he was released was subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!” (from Müyesser Yıldız's article for Oda TV) |
| Hakan Ekinci | 23,12,2016 | Suicide | Hakan Ekinci, an inmate in Edirne F-Type High Security Prison, committed suicide by hanging himself from iron bed railings with a sheet on Dec. 23 after he was told he would be transferred to another prison. Ekinci was convicted on charges of "damaging public property, threat, insult, theft, minor fraud and drug distribution." | ||
 | Murat Şişkin | Police officer | 31,07,2016 | Suicide | Murat Şişkin, a 42-year-old police officer, was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to the head. He left his home on July 30, 2016 but never returned, prompting his wife to file a missing person report. The police traced his mobile phone signal to the Kumarlı neighborhood of Osmaniye. A police team soon found his body in a car parked in an olive garden. Authorities described the case as a suicide, but family members believed there was foul play in Şişkin's death. Şişkin was the new father of a four-day-old baby boy and was very happy with the new member of the family, which already had three girls. Family members say there was no reason for him to have taken his own life. |
 | Ahmet Ok | Businessman | 20,10,2016 | Heart attack | Ahmet Ok, a much-loved shopkeeper in the Bozyazı district of Mersin province, passed away at the age of 61 as a result of a heart attack in prison, where he had been held on charges of aligning himself with the faith-based Gülen movement. |
| Fatih Korkmaz | Teacher | 25,10,2016 | Cancer | Fatih Korkmaz, a teacher who was diagnosed with brain cancer in February 2016, was detained in a police raid on his home at dawn on Aug. 17, 2016 on allegations of involvement in the coup. Korkmaz had recently undergone surgery and was ordered to recuperate at home, but authorities disregarded his medical condition. He was taken to Bartın, where he was jailed. His brother submitted three reports drawn up by doctors at Hacettepe University warning that Korkmaz’s life was at risk and urging the prosecutor to release him pending trial. Yet he was kept in jail for 25 days despite repeated pleas by the family. Authorities released him a month after his condition began to deteriorate. In the days he spent in jail, the cancer returned despite the surgery. He died on October 25, 2016 at the age of 30. He is survived by a wife and three children, aged 9, 7 and 1. His 60-year-old father was also jailed on trumped up charges of membership in the Gülen movement. |
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| Mehmet İnam | Dentist | 5,01,2017 | Heart attack | Mehmet İnam, a dentist in İzmir’s Kemalpaşa district, was arrested as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement. He allegedly died of a heart attack on Jan. 5, 2017 in Menemen Prison, where he was being held. Relatives claimed he was not given medication that he needed for a heart condition. It has been alleged that a large number of prisoners who have serious health problems are not receiving adequate treatment. |
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 | Sadullah Kara | Police officer | 7,01,2017 | Suicide | Sadullah Kara (35), a police officer who was assigned to the Kartal Courthouse, allegedly committed suicide when he was notified of his suspension as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement. When a police unit came to inform him of the decision and asked him to hand over his weapon and ID, Kara reportedly shot himself in the head in the police station located at the courthouse. However, it was later revealed that there was no official notification of his suspension but that he was asked to report to police headquarters and turn over his gun. |
 | Zeki Cezayirlioğlu | Police officer | 16,01,2017 | Suicide | Zeki Cezayirlioğlu (44) was a police officer who had been suspended over alleged links to the Gülen movement but was later reinstated after he was cleared of all charges. He allegedly tried to commit suicide by drinking pesticide due to the exclusion and mobbing he had suffered since returning to duty. Cezayirlioğlu was assigned to the Karabük Police Vocational Training Center when he attempted to kill himself and was immediately taken to the hospital. He recovered after treatment; however, following his discharge from the hospital, Cezayirlioğlu took his life by shooting himself in the head while his wife and two children were home. |
 | Hasan Orhan Çetin | Biochemistry ssistant | 19,02,2017 | Suicide | Hasan Orhan Çetin (30), a biochemistry assistant at İzmir Katip Çelebi University's Atatürk Teaching and Research Hospital, allegedly committed suicide after he became depressed following his suspension from duty as part of a crackdown on the Gülen movement. He reportedly jumped from the 10th floor of the hospital where he worked and ended his life. Devastated by her husband’s death, his wife was admitted for treatment in the same hospital. Çetin was dismissed from his job two days before he reportedly committed suicide. Ahmet Doğruyol, head of the İzmir branch of the Turkish Health Union, said: "Labeling as traitors or punishing people who work and function as law-abiding citizens without seeing the result of legal proceedings hurts the people’s conscience and causes trauma. Our duty as a state is not to lose people but to win people." The public prosecutor launched an investigation into Çetin's suicide. |
 | Mehmet Fatih Traş | Academic | 25,02,2017 | Suicide | Mehmet Fatih Traş (34), a research assistant at Çukurova University in the southern Turkish province of Adana, committed suicide in his home after he was fired from his job at the university. Traş was one of the signatories of a peace declaration which in early 2016 called on the government to halt operations by security forces in southeastern Turkey, restore peace to the nation and return to the negotiating table to restart shelved talks with the Kurds to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue. A total of 1,128 academics signed the declaration, which attracted widespread criticism from the government. Traş was fired from his job after he finished his doctoral studies. The Adana branch of the Education Personnel Union (Eğitim Sen) released a statement on Traş’s death and said the academic committed suicide as a result of the psychological trauma he experienced after losing his job. The peace declaration frustrated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, leading to retribution against the academics. Some of the insults Erdoğan used against them included “so-called intellectuals,” “a flock called intellectuals,” “traitors” and “rough copies of intellectuals.” |
 | Mustafa Sadık Akdağ | Dentist | 27,02,2017 | Suicide | Mustafa Sadık Akdağ (34), an assistant professor in the faculty of dentistry at Ordu University in Turkey’s Black Sea region, committed suicide, apparently because of the psychological trauma he experienced from being investigated due to alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. Akdağ shot himself to death in the house of one of his friends in Trabzon. In a suicide note he left behind, he wrote: “Nobody is responsible for my death. An accusation was directed at me. I am referring those who directed this accusation at me to God.” Turkish media reports said Akdağ had recently been interrogated by prosecutors due to alleged links to the Gülen movement and released. Akdağ’s body was taken to the Trabzon Council of Forensic Medicine for autopsy, while an investigation was launched into his death. |
 | Mehmet Tosun | Judge | 6,03,2017 | Cancer | Mehmet Tosun (29), a judge who was expelled from his job and detained on July 19, 2016 over alleged involvement in the July 15 coup attempt, died of cancer. He was interrogated by the police and a prosecutor but was later released under judicial supervision that required him to check in with the police department on a regular basis. He was also prohibited from traveling abroad. |
 | Mustafa Zümre | Computer engineer | 8,03,2017 | Drowning | Mustafa Zümre, a computer engineer at the 15th Missile Base in İstanbul who was dismissed from his job, was found dead after he was missing for 78 days. Zümre, for whom an arrest warrant was issued due to alleged Gülen links, reportedly went to the village of Umurca in Edirne’s Meriç district along with his wife and children on Dec. 12 to cross the Maritsa River to Greece in order to escape the witch-hunt against Gülen followers in Turkey. Zümre reportedly jumped into the river while he was fleeing a gendarmerie team. His body was found in the river on March 8 by Turkish military patrols six kilometers from the riverbank where he went missing. According to a report by online news website TurkishMinute.com, Zümre was tortured while in custody. “During the mass arrests [following the coup attempt of July 15], Mustafa was also detained and released. When I asked him what happened during detention, he said: ‘Let’s not talk about it. Some parts can never be told. But I can say that they tried everything you can imagine as torture on me,” said a source, who asked to remain anonymous. “Mustafa told me that ‘if they detain me again, they will not leave me alive.’ That’s the reason he was trying to leave Turkey,” added the source. |
 | Kemal Kurkut | Fine arts academy student | 21,03,2017 | Shot | Kemal Kurkut was shot dead by police at Nevruz celebrations in the Bağlar district of southeastern Diyarbakır province on March 21, 2017 on suspicion that he was a suicide bomber. However, photos shot by DiHaber show Kurkut’s confrontation with and killing by the police minute by minute and clearly rule out the possibility of Kurkut being a suicide bomber. Police found poetry books and clothes in Kurkut’s backpack after he was shot. Kurkut was studying at the department of music in the fine arts faculty of İnönü University and came for Nevruz celebrations in his hometown of Diyarbakır early on March 21. He stayed with his brother and joined in the celebrations the same day. A bare-chested Kurkut quarreled with police at a checkpoint when trying to get into the venue, photos taken during the incident show. The Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office oversaw the investigation into Kurkut’s killing. Two officers were detained then released in the probe. Diyarbakır Bar Association President Ahmet Özmen said: “The footage of the moment in which Kemal Kurkut was shot shows that the incident is a violation of the right to life. The Diyarbakır Bar will relentlessly pursue the investigation.” Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İstanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, in a parliamentary question, asked why Kurkut was killed when instead he could have been taken under control by one of the hundreds of police officers in the area. In the question, directed at Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Tanrıkulu also asked about allegations that the police made journalists delete footage of the incident. “Is it true that the police forced journalists in the area to delete the footage on their cameras as well as reformat their memory cards?” Tanrıkulu asked. |
| Ali Özer | Doctor | 23,03,2017 | Heart attack | Ali Özer, a 48-year-old doctor who was jailed due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, died of a heart attack in Çorum Prison on March 23, 2017. Özer had been the deputy chief physician at Ankara Nallıhan State Hospital. The doctor died at the Çorum Teaching and Research Hospital, where he was taken after suffering a heart attack in his prison ward. There are credible reports confirming that detainees and prisoners have been subjected systematic torture and ill-treatment in Turkey’s prisons and detention centers. Özer’s body was sent to the Ankara Council of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy. |
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 | Kadir Eyce | Police officer | 11,04,2017 | Cancer | Kadir Eyce, a 33-year-old police officer who was jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement, died on April 12, 2017, several weeks after he was released from prison due to health problems. He was detained on August 28, 2016 and reportedly subjected to torture during a lengthy detention. He had reportedly been denied food and water in jail, losing 45 kilograms in three months' time. A lawyer representing Eyce told Turkish media that when he was arrested he weighed 90 kilograms. Pictures posted on social media also revealed the extent of the ill treatment of the jailed police officer, causing serious concern about the fate of thousands of civilians who have been kept in prisons under poor conditions across the country. He was denied treatment at the hospital even though he had been suffering from gastrointestinal pain for days. They only allowed him to receive treatment in his cell. His health worsened further. When he was admitted to a hospital on December 17, 2016, he was diagnosed with a cancer. It took another month for authorities to finally release him, on January 18, 2017. When he was finally taken to a hospital, it was too late. “His body was beyond recognition,” said Emel Eyce, wife of the police officer. |
 | Recep Erdem | Businessman | 6,04,2017 | Heart attack | Seventy-four-year-old businessman Recep Erdem, under arrest as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, died after suffering a heart attack in prison in early April. He was taken to the regional Erzurum hospital for treatment, but despite the doctors' efforts, Erdem passed away on April 6, 2017. His sons, İsmail and İbrahim, in prison on similar charges, were given only limited access to their father's funeral, accompanied by gendarmes and forced to pray in handcuffs. The three were earlier jailed as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement. Ismail was a partner in the prominent TEMA grocery store chain until the government seized it. He was put in pre-trial detention in August 2016. |
 | Barış Kerem | High school student | 14,04,2017 | Extrajudicially executed by police | Barış Kerem, an 18-year-old high school student, was killed by a police officer when the car he was in reportedly did not stop at a police checkpoint on April 14, 2017. Police fired at the car after the driver, Demirhan Erkol, 15, reportedly failed to heed an order to stop, killing two young men and injuring two others in İstanbul’s Gazi district. According to the report, the car was carrying Demirhan Erkul, Oğuzhan Erkul, Barış Kerem, Ramazan Altürk and Birkan Yüksel. During the ensuing pursuit police fired at the car, killing Oğuzhan Erkul and Kerem, while Altürk and Demirhan Erkul were injured. Yüksel was detained by the police. Attorney Kıvanç Kayaoğlu, who talked to family members, said police aimed to kill the teenagers instead of trying to stop them. Oya Aslan, the attorney for Demirhan, said his client did not have a driver’s license and was driving a company car. He panicked when the police ordered him to stop. Aslan said the police fired 45 bullets at the car. Funerals were held at the Gazi Cemevi after autopsies were performed on the bodies of the teenagers. |
 | Oğuzhan Erkul | High school student | 14,04,2017 | Extrajudicially executed by police | Oğuzhan Erkul, a 17-year-old high school student, was killed by a police officer when the car he was in reportedly did not stop at a police checkpoint on April 14, 2017. Police fired at the car after the driver, Demirhan Erkol, 15, reportedly failed to heed an order to stop, killing two young men and injuring two others in İstanbul’s Gazi district. According to the report, the car was carrying Demirhan Erkul, Oğuzhan Erkul, Barış Kerem, Ramazan Altürk and Birkan Yüksel. During the ensuing pursuit police fired at the car, killing Oğuzhan Erkul and Kerem, while Altürk and Demirhan Erkul were injured. Yüksel was detained by the police. Attorney Kıvanç Kayaoğlu, who talked to family members, said police aimed to kill the teenagers instead of trying to stop them. Oya Aslan, the attorney for Demirhan, said his client did not have a driver’s license and was driving a company car. He panicked when the police ordered him to stop. Aslan said the police fired 45 bullets at the car. Funerals were held at the Gazi Cemevi after autopsies were performed on the bodies of the teenagers. |
 | Hasan Erkuş | Police officer | 26,04,2017 | Suicide | Hasan Erkuş, a police officer assigned to protect the Turkish Parliament, reportedly killed himself with his own gun after he learned he had been dismissed from his job along with more than 9,000 police officers in the single largest purge by the government. The government has dismissed in excess of 140,000 civil servants over alleged links to Gülen movement. Erkuş called his family before he allegedly took his own life, saying that he had never been a traitor and did not betray his country. He posted similar messages on social media. |
 | Gültekin Payat | Teacher | 2,5,2017 | Fall from balcony | Gültekin Payat, a 41-year-old teacher who was the subject of an arrest warrant due to an investigation into the Gülen movement, died after falling 10 meters from a balcony, as he was allegedly attempting to escape from police officers looking for him. Denizli police raided a home where Payat had been in hiding for some time. He is accused of having been involved with an association that was closed under one of the post-coup emergency decree-laws. Payat reportedly jumped into the balcony of the next apartment after he saw police knocking at his door. When he attempted to leap to a third balcony, the iron bar he was holding was bent, and he fell straight to the ground from the third floor. The father of two was taken to Denizli State Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries. |
 | Mustafa Hikmet Kayapalı | Author, theologian | 10,05,2017 | Fall from balcony | Fifty-nine-year-old writer Mustafa Hikmet Kayapalı died after allegedly falling from a three-story building as he was reportedly attempting to escape from a police raid carried out as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement. Balıkesir police raided an apartment upon a complaint about a meeting of Gülen followers, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency. Kayapalı reportedly went out on the balcony when he saw police raiding the apartment he was in. The agency did not elaborate on the incident further but said the iron bar he was holding broke off and that he fell to the ground from the third floor. The author of four books on religion and family issues, Kayapalı died at the scene. |
 | Abdülkadir Karadağ | Gendarme | 15,07,2016 | Shot by commanding officer | During the July 15 coup attempt, Lt. Abdülkadir Karadağ, then in training, was called to İstanbul’s city center and was told that ISIS terrorists were there in police uniforms. Karadağ was taken to the Gendarmerie General Command with his friends. His father found Karadağ’s body at the Council of Forensic Medicine in Ankara’s Keçiören district 15 days later. One of Karadağ’s colleagues, incarcerated in Sincan Prison, told his family, “That night a traitorous captain killed Abdülkadir because we did not follow the order to shoot given by a [captain] we had never seen before.” Karadağ’s father took his body to Erzurum, where local authorities prohibited the holding of a funeral ceremony for him despite the fact that his father had found an appropriate burial site. Karadağ was only able to be buried in a body bag in a desolate area, without a funeral prayer or a shroud. |
 | Fatih Ezber | Police chief | 2,02,2017 | Suicide | Fatih Ezber, a 36-year-old police chief in northeastern Trabzon province, reportedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in his car. He was suspended from his job over alleged links to the Gülen movement but was allowed to return to work in January. He was appointed chief of police in Sürmene two days before his allegedly killed himself. He is survived by a wife and two children. An investigation was launched into his death. |
 | Musa Derinyar | Deputy police chief | 22,03,2017 | Suicide | Musa Derinyar, a 41-year-old deputy police chief, allegedly shot himself with his service revolver at a police station in Çanakkale. His colleagues found him lying in a pool of blood in a prayer room at the police station and rushed him to the hospital. He received emergency surgery, but the doctors were unable to save him. He is survived by a wife and two children. |
| Kamil İsmail Aydın | Student | 25,03,2017 | Suicide | Kamil İsmail Aydın, a 19-year old student, reportedly became depressed after his father, Nasuhi Engin Aydın, a professor, was arrested for having an account at Bank Asya, affiliated with the Gülen movement and seized by the government. İsmail Aydın was studying at Turkey’s top rate Boğaziçi University and reportedly took his life in the school dormitory. |
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 | Mehmet Karadoğan | Teacher | 18,11,2016 | Suicide | Mehmet Karadoğan, a 37-year-old teacher who was suspended from his job over alleged links to the Gülen movement, took his own life with a hunting rifle in the Ortanca district of the western Muğla province. Karadoğan was married and is survived by a wife and two children. Gendarmes found his body in a lemon orchard near his car, which was parked on the roadside. He was under investigation for allegedly visiting a banned website that belonged to the Gülen movement that he shared with colleagues last year during his assignment in Afyon. His elder brother, Galip Karadoğan, said Mehmet was under investigation by the prosecutor and did not want anybody to know about it. He said both of them had visited the prosecutor in Afyon and learned that the investigation would take some time while he was under suspension. |
 | İzzet Akdağ | Police officer | 4,09,2016 | Suicide | İzzet Akdağ, a police officer who was suspended over alleged links to the Gülen movement, reportedly killed himself with his firearm. Although he was allowed to return to work after his suspension in the city of Mersin, Akdağ suffered from depression, local reports said. He is survived by a wife and three children. |
 | KenanMercan | Sergeant major | 28,07,2016 | Suicide | Kenan Mercan, a 38-year-old sergeant major, allegedly committed suicide with his own gun in the town of Yakutiye in Turkey’s eastern Erzurum province. He was reportedly upset about his the suspension of his brother, a police officer, for alleged links to the Gülen movement. While his wife was putting their small child to bed, Mercan went into the kitchen and locked the door. He then shot himself in the head with a handgun. His wife found him lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He is survived by a wife and two children. |
| Y.Y. | Police chief | 27,04,2017 | Suicide | Deputy Police Chief Y.Y., who went to Osmaniye on vacation, was suspended from his job as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement. In the early morning hours, Y.Y.’s dead body was found in the courtyard of the Türkoğlu Mosque. It was reported that Y.Y. had committed suicide. |
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| Hüseyin Pembe | Teacher | 29,05,2017 | Cancer | Hüseyin Pembe, a 62-year-old teacher who had been jailed for nine months despite the fact that he was receiving treatment for cancer, died in pretrial detention. Pembe was arrested on February 15, 2017 for raising scholarship funds for poor students and was accused of membership in the Gülen movement. Terrible prison conditions in Erzincan province negatively impacted his health, and he was diagnosed with cancer after spending four months in jail. Pembe and 29 other inmates were kept in a cell built to accommodate only eight. He had to share single bathroom with 49 other people in the block. Pembe had to undergo surgery a month before his passing. Yet, authorities sent him back to the same overcrowded cell after three days in the hospital. Later, Pembe was transferred to Ankara's Sincan Prison for chemotherapy treatment in a nearby hospital. He was never allowed to see his family while he was undergoing difficult chemotherapy sessions. The authorities refused to release him pending trial and kept him in prison after each session. His health unfortunately worsened, and he was rushed to the emergency room and was put in intensive care. His doctor, who urged a family visit for him, was also threatened with imprisonment. Pembe died in the hospital on May 29, 2017 before getting a chance to bid farewell to his family. Adding insult to injury, Turkish authorities issued a posthumous release order for him. |
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 | Tuğçe Ölçer | Student | 11,06,2017 | Suicide | Tuğçe Ölçer, a 21-year-old university student, died after jumping from a balcony. She was reportedly depressed due to her father’s imprisonment. A senior in the faculty of education at Boğazici University, Ölçer jumped to her death from the balcony of her family home in İzmir. Ölçer suffered psychological problems after her father, identified only by his initials, M.A.Ö., was arrested, and was despondent for some time. |
 | Hatice G. | 12,06,2017 | Suicide | Hatice G. a 60-year-old woman, hanged herself in her home in the Söke district of Aydın province. Hatice G. was the wife of V.G., a small business owner who had been under arrest over alleged links to the Gülen movement since July 27, 2016. V.G. was running a stationery store before he was arrested, and Hatice G. took over the business as well as the sole care of their children after V.G.’s imprisonment. Hatice G. suffered a physiological collapse due to her husband’s arrest and ensuing difficulties at work. |
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 | Eren Uzun | 18,06,2017 | Suicide | Eren Uzun, 22, was detained in İzmir’s Kemalpaşa district after attacking a woman with a knife in a market. Uzun hanged himself while in police custody. |
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 | Önder Duran | Police officer | 03,07,2017 | Suicide | Önder Duran, 43-year-old police officer who was working in the Akşehir Police Department’s counterterrorism unit, committed suicide with his service pistol. Authorities launched an official investigation into Duran’s death. He was married with one child and had been working in Akşehir, located in Konya province, for about five years. |
 | Kamil Ülgüt | Businessman | 04,07,2017 | Heart attack | Kamil Ülgüt (61) was arrested on Aug. 14, 2016 as part of the prosecution of the Gülen movement after a failed coup on July 15. Ürgüt was held at the Elbistan E-type Prison. He was found dead in the bathroom after suffering a heart attack. The authorities launched an investigation into his death. |
 | Melikşah Kültür | Police officer | 01,07,2017 | An administrative investigation was launched into allegations of close links to the Gülen movement on the part of 41-year-old Melikşah Kültür, who was working at the Gaziantep Police Department. Three months later, Kültür was found dead in his friend’s apartment six days after he died. | |
 | Necmettin Fendik | Construction worker | 17,07,2017 | Shot by police | Necmettin Fendik, a construction worker, was seriously wounded and subsequently died after being shot by the police when he opened the door to his house during a raid on Hakkari’s Yüksekova district on the morning of July 16, 2017. Police officers reportedly carried out the operation on the basis of a complaint about three neighborhoods in the district. His wife, Kudret Fendik, testified that law enforcement officers had taken 9-month-old Efrin from her elder sister’s arms and threw her on the ground and assaulted another child who was trying to go to his father. His wife also said police officers behaved violently towards all family members. Necmettin had been waiting for two hours with severe injuries, but the police officers would not even allow him to approach his own children. The police also threatened the family with death and pointed their rifles at the neighbors looking through the window during the raid on the Güngör neighborhood. Necmettin, who was taken to the hospital two hours after he was shot that night, died on the morning of July 18. |
 | Hakan Çalışkan | Deputy police chief | 31,07,2017 | Suicide | Hakan Çalışkan, who was serving as deputy chief of police in İstanbul’s Silivri district, was found after he committed suicide with his service revolver, although it was never learned why Çalışkan killed himself. Çalışkan reportedly went to the district police department on July 31, 2017 to take a break at around 01:10 hours. He was found dead at 10:30, sitting in the personal secretary's chair. There was a gunshot wound to the head and the service revolver was beside the chair. |
 | Ahmet Tatar | Police chief | 03,08,2017 | Heart attack | Fifty-two-year-old Ahmet Tatar, a retired police chief who was arrested as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement in Osmaniye province, died in prison. The administration of Osmaniye Prison said Tatar died of a heart attack after he was taken to Osmaniye State Hospital on August 1 when he complained of chest pains. Tatar had retired in 2015 as chief of the Diyarbakır Police Department’s traffic division. |
 | Davut Türkel | Labor union member | 14,08,2017 | Died in police custody | Davut Türkel (59) was detained by police in Antalya province on July 13 together with 90 others who used to be members of the AKÇA-DER labor union in an investigation that was part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement. He was kept in police custody for days and was taken to a courthouse for the first time on the 12th day of his detention. However, he suspiciously died in the courthouse before he could defend himself before the court. Police said Türkel fell down a flight of stairs and hit his head on the floor before he was seen by the judge. Following the incident he was taken to a hospital in Antalya and was in intensive care until his demise on August 3. It was claimed that Türkel’s fall down the stairs was impossible due to the fact that detainees’ arms are always held by police officers or gendarmes during transfers from detention centers to courthouses. It was also claimed that as Türkel was undergoing treatment in the intensive care unit, the court decided to release him in an effort to cover up the fact that he had died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. |
 | Durmuş Ali Çetin | Police officer | 19,08,2017 | Suicide | Durmuş Ali Çetin, a former police officer who had been dismissed from his job by a government decree 10 months earlier, was found dead in his home in İstanbul, apparently having committed suicide. It was reported that Çetin had become depressed after he had difficulty repaying a loan he secured to buy the house in İstanbul. He moved to Kahramanmaraş’s Afşin district, where he and his family had been living since he was fired. Çetin went to İstanbul to sell the house, after which his family didn't hear from him for a while. Police entered the house and found Çetin dead after the family reported him missing. He was buried in Afşin following a religious ceremony. He had previously disappeared on May 17 and could not be reached for days, whereupon his family became concerned about his safety. The father of three had been dismissed during a state of emergency over his alleged links to the Gülen movement. However, on May 30, 2017, Çetin was found in Hatay province and was reported to be suffering from psychological problems. |
 | Mustafa Erdoğan | Supreme Court of Appeals judge | 22,08,2017 | Negligence by authorities | Mustafa Erdoğan, a member of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals, was arrested during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt in July 2016 and put in prison on February 3, 2017. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and had surgery shortly before his incarceration in his hometown of Antalya. In addition to his imprisonment, his assets and bank accounts had been frozen by a court. He was held in a heavily guarded hospital room for six months, half of his body paralyzed. Erdoğan’s repeated appeals through his lawyers for his release on health grounds were denied due to the belief that he presented a flight risk. Even the Constitutional Court rejected his release request, saying that “the detainee is not in danger. Erdoğan was not allowed to see his family while in the hospital. He died four days after he was finally released, on August 18, 2017. The reason for Erdoğan’s arrest is not known since no indictment was ever drafted. |
 | Hamza Kaçmaz | 19,08,2017 | Suicide | Hamza Kaçmaz, 21, held in Antalya E Type Prison for violating the terms of his probation, was taken to the Antalya Teaching and Research Hospital on August 15, 2017 after he allegedly tried to hang himself. Kaçmaz died in the hospital five days later. However, no trace of asphyxiation was found in the initial autopsy, which instead discovered bruises on his midriff and the back of his neck. His uncle, Abdulbari Kaçmaz, said his nephew did not commit suicide but was beaten to death by prison guards, and his family lodged a complaint against the prison administration. He further claimed that his nephew’s ward mates had called their families and told them that Kaçmaz had been severely beaten by the prison guards. | |
| Sevgi Balcı | Nurse | 25,08,2017 | Suicide | Sevgi Balcı, a mother of three, including a 7-month-old baby, and a nurse who was fired by a government decree in October 2016, committed suicide by hanging herself in Isparta province. She was buried after a funeral in Burdur’s Bucak district. According to the ArtiGercek.com website, Balcı was expecting to be returned to her job by a decree issued early on August 25, 2017. After realizing that she was not going to be reinstated, Balcı took her own life. Balcı had also attempted to commit suicide on August 15, 2017, local media reported. According to the reports the 37-year-old hanged herself at her home in the Çünür neighborhood of Isparta. Balcı’s neighbors, upon not hearing from her for a while, called the police, who broke into her house and found her lifeless body. An anonymous tip submitted on August 17 to @magdurmesajiTr, a Twitter account known for awareness postings regarding post-coup rights violations, Sevgi Balcı and her husband, Halil İbrahim Balcı, were dismissed from their jobs as a nurse and a hospital worker, respectively. “She has been depressed for some time, and she tried to commit suicide earlier too. … She is now in intensive care at a hospital,” the tip said. |
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 | İbrahim Eski | Police officer | 26,09,2017 | Suicide | Police officer İbrahim Eski, 31, suspended while working at the Sakarya Police Department after the coup attempt on allegations that he had connections to the faith-based Gülen movement, hanged himself. He was married with two children. |
 | İrfan Bayar | Municipal worker | 27,10,2017 | Suicide | İrfan Bayar, a municipal worker in Kastamonu province and a former soldier who was wounded in a clash with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1997, died by suicide after an investigation was launched into him for sending his child to a private school affiliated with the Gülen movement. Yıldırım Kaya, a member of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said during a press conference that Bayar shot himself in a car parked in front of his workplace on October 27. Bayar had tried to register his son Efe in a private school in downtown Kastamonu but that his application was denied due to a lack of spaces, and Efe ended up in a Gülen movement-affiliated school in 2011, Kaya said. “İrfan Kaya was summoned to Ankara for an interrogation as part of an investigation two weeks ago. He told the prosecutor: “I sent my son to that school with the help of the government quota [for veterans]. I have no links or affiliation [with the movement].” Kaya said Bayar killed himself over his disappointment that the government considered him to be affiliated with the movement. |
 | Yavuz Ekrem Arslan | Brigadier general | 06,11,2017 | Negligence by authorities | Jailed Brig. Gen. Yavuz Ekrem Arslan, who was the former commander of the Manisa 1st Infantry Private Training Brigade, died at the Gülhane Military Hospital (GATA), where he was undergoing treatment. Arslan was detained in the wake of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. He was later arrested by a court and put behind bars. He was transferred to GATA upon becoming ill after spending 259 days in the prison. |
 | Abdurrahman Şen | 01,12,2017 | Negligence by authorities (Diabetic) | Died in Alanya L Type Prison. | |
| Yılmaz Duruk | 17,11,2017 | Negligence by authorities | Yılmaz Duruk (57), who had been incarcerated in Mersin E-type Open Prison since April 2017, died at Mersin University Hospital on November 17, 2017. He had been hospitalized when he was diagnosed with infection, seven months after complaining to a doctor about a toothache. His family filed a complaint with Turkey’s Center for Prison Studies/Civil Society in the Penal System (TCPS/CISST) on November 2 and reported that Duruk was put in intensive care due to an infection that began in a tooth and later spread to his whole body. The family was told to “be prepared for anything” by the doctors. Fifteen days later he was declared brain dead. According to information his family gave to CİSST, Duruk was arrested on March 27, 2017 and was sent to Mersin E-type Closed Prison. In the same month, Duruk complained to the prison doctor about a toothache. After one month in the closed prison, he was transferred to an open prison and was examined by the prison doctor in March, April and August. Seven months after his arrest, his doctor referred him to Mersin’s Toros State Hospital emergency clinic on October 24, 2017 due to an abscess in his tooth. His family reported that although Duruk fainted while waiting to be seen, he was given an antibiotic and sent back to the prison. According to prison administration documents, Duruk was sent to the faculty of medicine’s Infectious Disease Clinic at Mersin University on October 26, 2017, again under an “emergency transfer” due to an infection. İdil Aydınoğlu from CİSST told the Bianet news website that they spoke to the relevant institutions on November 3 upon receiving the complaint from Duruk’s family. On November 14, the prison administration responded to CİSST, saying that “the necessary examinations and treatments were undertaken for Duruk, and there was no negligence on the part of the prison.” However, Aydınoğlu said: “Normally, this open prison has a capacity of 140 people, but at the moment there are 360 people incarcerated there. Since it’s overcrowded, prisoners who do not fit in the wards are put in other quarters. This causes a serious hygiene problem, and one inmate getting sick affects everyone else.” Indicating that the prisoners reported that the administration told them they “will not be sent to the hospital except for a heart attack,” Aydınoğlu said, “In addition, there are also claims that the doctors do not take sufficient care of the prisoners since the prisoners’ ward is far from Mersin City Hospital.” |
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 | Ahmet Kalaycı | 21,10,2017 | Suicide | Ahmet Kalaycı, married with one child and living Aydın, was arrested on charges of theft. Kalaycı was sentenced to five years in prison and allegedly attempted suicide by hanging himself with a bed sheet. Kalaycı subsequently died in the hospital. Kalaycı's father, Ahmet Kalaycı, filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutor, claiming that his son had not died by suicide but instead was beaten to death by prison guards. The father further alleged that there were bruises on his son’s midriff. | |
 | Tugay Uslu | Imam | 09,11,2017 | Accident | Tugay Uslu, who was dismissed from his job as an imam by a government decree as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, died suspiciously in an accident on December 9 when his motorcycle was rear-ended by a stolen vehicle in İzmir. The car was later found abandoned. Uslu was married and the father of two . His wife, who was unaware of the accident, filed a missing person report when he failed to return home. A person identified only by the initials O.E. reported to the police that his car, bearing license plate 35 VPB 33, which was parked in front of his house, had been stolen. The police found the vehicle abandoned near a creek on the way to Bergama-Kozak. Uslu’s dead body was found in the creek. Camera footage taken near the scene showed that the vehicle that hit Uslu was the same vehicle that was stolen. |
 | Murat Açar | 16,12,2017 | Suicide | Police claimed that 24-year-old Murat Araç, who was detained at a road checkpoint in Antalya’s Gazipaşa district, committed suicide by jumping out of a third-story window of the district police station. According to reports, members of the Güney unit under the Gazipaşa District Gendarmerie Command stopped a passenger bus coming from predominantly Kurdish-populated southeastern Turkey at a checkpoint. Araç was detained after the ID checks. Araç was referred to court after processing and then gave a deposition in the prosecutor’s office. He was later turned over to the Alanya Police Department’s counterterrorism unit. He was taken to the Gazipaşa police station from the courthouse, and the police claim that he jumped out of a window on the third floor at 18:00 on December 16, 2017. Araç’s body was taken to the Antalya Institute of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy. |
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 | Hüdaverdi Adam | Professor | 23,12,2017 | Accident | Public Relations professor Hüdaverdi Adam, an academic, was killed in a hit-and-run incident by a car while waiting on the roadside at night in Turkey’s north-western province of Düzce on December 23, 2017. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Adam was detained in August 2016 and later released pending trial. |
 | Selman Aşçı | 27,12,2017 | Negligence by authorities | Thirty-two-year-old Selman Aşçı was detained due to alleged involvement in the Gülen movement-affiliated charity Kimse Yok mu and was kept in pretrial detention in İzmir’s Şakran Prison for more than a year. Aşcı was suffering from cancer and receiving treatment in prison. Weeks before his demise, his condition worsened. Despite all his requests to be transferred to a hospital, permission for the move was denied by the prison authorities. Ten days after his health began to deteriorate, he suffered a severe gastrointestinal event and was taken to a hospital and put in intensive care. Aşçı could not be saved despite all the doctors’ efforts. The Justice Ministry and prison administration never released a statement about the death of Aşçı. Aşçı was married and the father of two. |
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 | Murat Saat | Author | 28,12,2017 | Heart attack | Jailed Turkish author Murat Saat died after spending 15 days in a coma that followed a heart attack on December 13. Saat was incarcerated in Bandırma No. 2 T-type Closed Prison, and the prison administration was accused of negligence in his demise. Saat’s body was first taken to the Bursa Institute of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy and then was buried in his hometown of Boyalıcı in Samsun province. Ertan Tan, an inmate in the same prison, claimed in a letter that Saat suffered a heart attack but that the prison administration intervened too late. Tan wrote that Saat was taken to the hospital by car instead of an ambulance and that his heart beat briefly stopped beating. Saat was born in 1974, and when he was 22 years old, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 in a case against the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front. In prison for 21 years, he was transferred from Sincan No. 2 F-Type Closed Prison to Bandırma No. 2 T-Type Closed Prison, where he remained for two years. His book, titled “Is that You, My Best Friend?” received an award in 2014 from the Ankara International Short Story Association. |
 | Lokman Ersoy | Teacher | 08,01,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Teacher Lokman Ersoy died as a result of negligence on the part of Turkish authorities while in prison. He had been incarcerated due to alleged links to the Gülen movement during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Ersoy’s repeated requests for release pending trial because of his worsening health in Balıkesir’s Kepsut Prison were denied by the prison administration. He was eventually allowed to seek medical help due to the state of his health; he was diagnosed with gallstones and cancer and had also developed hemorrhoids during his long stay in prison. However, within a few days Ersoy passed away in an İzmir hospital since he had been unable to receive treatment in a timely fashion. Eight petitions submitted by Ersoy, who was kept in the A-2 Ward of Kepsut Prison, to the authorities to visit an infirmary were rejected by prison management. |
 | Naim Çıtır | Businessman | 22,01,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Naim Çıtır, founding chairman of the Konya Association of Businessmen and Industrialists (AKTİSAD), was jailed and his assets seized during the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Çıtır had been one of the victims of the Turkish government’s policies against activists and philanthropists affiliated with the Gülen movement following a December 17-25, 2013 corruption investigation. Çıtır was first jailed on charges of membership in a terrorist organization unsupported by any evidence, and then his assets were seized. The businessman developed cancer during his six months of imprisonment. While he should have been sent to a hospital and received treatment, his health worsened by the day because of the poor conditions and neglect in prison. Çıtır died due to complications arising from his illness. |
 | Burak Cihangir | 24-01-2018 | Suicide | Burak Cihangir, a 26-year-old man who was put under arrest in İskenderun, was found hanging in the bathroom of the prison ward where he was being held. Cihangir’s body was turned over to his family following an autopsy, while an investigation was reportedly launched into the young man’s death by the İskenderun Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. | |
 | Vahyettin Yahya Bayat | Businessman | 09,02,2018 | Heart attack | Vahyettin Yahya Bayat, a 65-year-old businessman under arrest as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, died after suffering a heart attack in his cell at Diyarbakır Prison. Bayat had reportedly been suffering from cardiac disease. |
 | Celal Şeker | 03,02,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Celal Şeker, who was not released from the Diyarbakır D Type Closed Prison by Turkish authorities despite reports of a serious health condition, died due to the negligence of the Turkish authorities. Medical reports indicated that Şeker was in poor health. Since he was classified as “96 percent disabled,” doctors said he should not be required to stay in prison. However, all applications for his release were reportedly denied by the authorities. Şeker, who was referred to the Gazi Yaşargil Teaching and Research Hospital in Diyarbakır after suffering a heart attack on January 19, 2018, struggled to stay alive while in intensive care. All appeals made by lawyers from Turkey’s Human Rights Association (İHD) for Şeker’s release were rejected, whereupon the lawyers appealed to the Constitutional Court as a last resort. However, the court also denied the request for his release on the grounds that “the applicant has access to health services.” Şeker was buried in his hometown of Muş. |
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 | Ahmet Turan Özcerit | Assistant professor | 12,02,2018 | Cancer | Assistant Professor Ahmet Turan Özcerit, who used to work at Sakarya University’s faculty of computer and information science until he was arrested, jailed and subsequently dismissed from his job over alleged links to the Gülen movement, died of cancer in his liver and intestines that developed during his stay in prison. Özcerit was arrested as part of a Sakarya-based investigation into the movement on August 8, 2016, and post-coup emergency decree-law No. 672 sacked him from the university on September 1, 2016. The indictment against Özcerit was prepared 13 months after his incarceration. His relatives had announced his deteriorating health on social media in September 2017, saying: “Five weeks ago, he was taken from Bandırma Prison to a hospital with some problems including intense pain, lack of appetite and rapid weight loss. When the hospital in Bandırma failed to treat him, he was referred to the Atatürk Teaching and Research Hospital in İzmir, where he was diagnosed with tumors in his liver and intestines. The cancer had already spread to other parts of his body.” “My father has been diagnosed with liver cancer and needs immediate treatment. He is now being kept in the detention ward of İzmir Teaching and Research Hospital. Neither my mother nor anyone else is allowed to keep him company. All I want is to see him free and healthy,” his son, Sinan Özcerit, told the TR724 news website on September 9, 2017. “After he was arrested, my father was first put in a prison in Sakarya and then transferred to Bandırma. During this time the pain in his stomach got worse, and he sent a petition to the prison management asking to see a doctor. He was told that some 200 arrestees were waiting to see the doctor and that he therefore had to wait. In several weeks, his health deteriorated and he lost around 15 kilograms. He eventually lost consciousness. When they finally saw that he was in critical condition, the prison management brought him to the Bandırma hospital and then transferred him to İzmir,” his son told TR724. “He has a tumor in his liver. He can’t eat. He is losing weight. He also has an ulcer and gallstone. We obtained a medical report and requested his release from the Sakarya 5th High Criminal Court. The judge looked at the report and asked for a committee report. We went back to the doctor and asked for the committee report, and he told us he could provide it only after surgery. When we asked when the surgery would take place, we were not given any specific date. Both the doctor and the judge are scared. At the prison, we were allowed to see our father every two weeks. However, here at the hospital we are not allowed to see him at all,” Sinan Özcerit had said. Sinan Özcerit had earlier told the Kronos online news outlet that “they turned our home upside down. They seized some children’s books. They also seized a copy of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ as evidence during a raid on our neighbor’s house. They took my father away, and we didn’t hear from him for three days. The authorities have never answered our inquiries. We ultimately located him after three days and took some clean underwear to him. He said the detention conditions were awful. He was forced to remain in his underwear with his hands cuffed. When they [detainees] asked for water, the guards replied, ‘You don’t even deserve to drink water.’ They beat my father and tortured him. We secured a doctor’s report about that. He was forced to stay with 20 other people in a four-person cell. They slept in turns as there was not enough room for everyone to sleep at the same time. When he was transferred from police custody to prison, he said it was like paradise in prison compared to the previous place.” |
| Adnan Çetin | Air Force colonel | 16,02,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Lawyer Kemal Uçar announced that Col. Adnan Çetin, jailed in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison, had died due to the prison authorities’ negligence after he experienced a cerebral hemorrhage. Uçar shared a series of tweets and stated that “I have confirmed that the brain death of [a colonel] has occurred. … The family members of this colonel still have not been allowed to enter his room because he is still a prisoner. Soldiers are guarding his door. It is totally unbelievable that anyone would think that a soldier who is brain dead could escape.” Uçar’s tweets: “Today I went to Silivri Prison to visit two of my clients who are military officers and jailed in the B-1 ward of No. 4 block. A horrible incident took place in their ward on February 13, 2018. “A colonel from Turkish Air Forces who was jailed as part of a case that will be tried on April 16, 2018 and was held in the same ward as my clients, experienced a serious health problem, the severity of which could be seen just by looking at him. “The colonel was immediately taken to the infirmary. However, he was brought back to the ward after he was only given an intravenous line that was still attached. He arrived at the ward unable to walk, speak or move… The other inmates reported the situation to the prison guards. “However, since the colonel had previously been examined by a doctor, it became a topic of discussion as to whether to transfer him to a hospital or not. Following the insistence of the other inmates for about 20-25 minutes, the colonel was eventually taken to Silivri State Hospital. The bitter facts emerged there. “The colonel was immediately referred by Silivri State Hospital to the Bakırköy Dr. Sadi Konuk Teaching and Research Hospital … because the colonel was experiencing a cerebral hemorrhage. “Due to the belated first intervention and progressively worse bleeding, I learned that the colonel was already brain dead. “The ‘detention’ that is said to be a ‘measure’ now goes beyond punishment. Those who have been arrested as a ‘measure’ have lost their lives -- their lives! Can you bring life back to anybody who has passed away? If you can not look after a patient, then do not arrest him/her. The persecutions have become unbearable!” |
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 | Deniz Hakan Şen | 06,03,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Deniz Hakan Şen, a pharmaceuticals representative for many years, was detained on October 1, 2017 in the post-coup witch hunt, arrested and sent to the notorious Silivri Prison. Şen developed stomach cancer that progressed further in the unhygienic conditions of the prison. He was belatedly diagnosed, with the prison administration turning a blind eye to his repeated petitions seeking permission to see a doctor. He was hospitalized only when he fainted in his ward while praying and was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. He lost 35 kilograms in the space of a month. He needed comprehensive treatment in a healthy environment, yet his requests for release were rejected despite medical reports. The prison administration deliberately changed his ward often, which further affected his health. He was finally released on February 19 and was put in intensive care. His release came too late, however, and he died on March 6. |
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| Mehmet Koşar | Teacher | 12,03,2018 | Suicide | Thirty-eight-year-old teacher Mehmet Koşar, who was dismissed from his job by a government decree issued under a state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016 over alleged links to the Gülen movement, died by suicide on March 9, 2018 in Muğla province. Koşar and his wife were teachers; however, both of them were fired over their alleged links to the movement. Koşar, who had been a computer teacher at a public school in the Seydikemer neighborhood of Fethiye in Muğla province, could not bear the psychological burden of being fired and considered “the other” by society and as a result took his own life. Koşar was reportedly buried in the Karadere Cemetery in Seydikemer after a funeral ceremony. He is survived by a wife and two children. |
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 | Teoman Gökçe | Judge | 02,04,2018 | Heart attack | Judge Teoman Gökçe, a former member of Turkey’s Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) who was jailed following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, died in Sincan Prison in Ankara. Turkish media reported that Gökçe died of a heart attack. Gökçe was arrested and jailed as part of a post-coup witch hunt carried out by the Turkish government led by autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against alleged members of the Gülen movement. Gökçe reportedly suffered a heart attack and was unable to be saved despite the doctors’ best efforts. |
 | Cemal Gürer | Teacher | 25,04,2018 | Cancer | Teacher Cemal Gürer, who was jailed as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement in the wake of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, died in pretrial detention at a prison in Elazığ. Gürer had worked as a teacher in Elazığ province for years. He was arrested and put in prison after the coup attempt. A previously experienced cancer reappeared during his stay in prison, and he was unable to get sufficient or appropriate treatment. After his health worsened, Gürer was reportedly taken to a hospital, where he passed away. |
 | Halime Gülsü | Teacher | 28,04,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Halime Gülsu, a 34-year-old unemployed English teacher, died in jail because she was denied the necessary treatment for a chronic disease she had been suffering from since childhood, according to witnesses and a preliminary autopsy report. Gülsu, who was arrested on Feb. 20, 2018 along with dozens of other women for allegedly helping the families of people who were jailed over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, died in prison in Mersin province. She was suffering from lupus erythematosus and was reportedly deprived of the medication she took for this disease while in jail. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a renowned human rights activist and a doctor by profession, who spoke to Gülsu’s brothers, said she was kept in police detention for 15 days and then arrested and sent to Mersin Prison. During the time she was in police custody, according to what Gülsu’s brothers told Gergerlioğlu, the brothers were not allowed to see their sister, and although they brought medication to be given to her immediately, she never received it. The brothers told Gergerlioğlu that one of Gülsu’s cellmates, who was later released, told them their sister was not given her medication while in detention. The brothers also said they were informed later that Gülsu appeared in court and was sent to Tarsus Prison and that they did not know whether she was subjected to any maltreatment or torture during the process. One of Gülsu’s brothers, Metin, said he brought Gülsu’s medical reports along with her medication while she was in detention but later learned that the reports went missing. “The patient was referred to a hospital in Tarsus due to the reports that went missing and the ambiguity over her drugs. Following an examination there, the doctors claimed that the disease from which she had been suffering for years simply did not exist. This is an unbelievable situation,” wrote Gergerlioğlu, adding that for someone suffering from lupus erythematosus, it is very important to live in a healthy environment in addition to taking medication regularly. According to Gergerlioğlu, in people suffering from lupus erythematosus, the disease doesn’t affect one part of the body but rather all the internal organs because it is systemic, and the lives of these people are filled with hardship because the medication they take affects their immune system, and their condition is likely to deteriorate even due to a small health problem. Gülsu was reportedly jailed in an overcrowded prison cell, with 21 people including three children staying in the 12-person cell. Gülsu was last seen by her brother Metin on April 25, when she was brought back from an examination at Mersin City Hospital. The brother told Gergerlioğlu that Gülsu looked exhausted and told her brother she was feeling very unwell. Shortly after her brother left, Gülsu got worse, her breathing stopped and she was taken to the prison infirmary. “Gülsu was showing all the signs of imminent death, but the necessary action was not taken. She needed to be taken to an intensive care unit. As was mentioned in her preliminary autopsy report, she had signs of heart and kidney failure. As a doctor, I can say the clinical situation of Gülsu and my examination of her preliminary autopsy report show a very neglected patient,” wrote Gergerlioğlu. The prominent activist said if the necessary medical action had been taken in intensive care, it would have saved her life, but instead Gülsu was taken back to prison from the infirmary, where she died. |
 | İbrahim Halil Özyavuz | Doctor | 01,06,2018 | Suicide | The family members of Dr. İbrahim Halil Özyavuz, a brilliant medical doctor who was detained by Turkish police and imprisoned as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, said he did not commit suicide but died after he was tortured by police while in detention. It was previously reported that Dr. Özyavuz attempted to commit suicide in Silivri Prison and died two days later in intensive care at Haseki State Hospital in İstanbul. Dr. Özyavuz’s family stated that the cause of his death was the torture he was subjected to in detention. Family members said they saw traces of torture on his body when they went to retrieve it for burial in İstanbul. Dr. Özyavuz’s family members were given three different explanations by police about the cause of his death and then were told not to pursue it any further. His father said: “They can also kill us. There is no state here.” Özyavuz was a successful radiologist who studied at the prestigious Cerrahpaşa medical faculty at İstanbul University, graduated with honors and came third in the national Examination on Medical Expertise (TUS). Years ago Özyavuz’s extraordinary success in the university entrance exam was also extensively covered by the Turkish media since he was the child of a poor farm family with seven children in Turkey’s Şanlıurfa province. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, one of Turkey’s most prominent human rights defenders and a medical doctor, also shared the same information on Dr. Özyavuz and condemned the persecution of innocent people by the Erdoğan regime. Özyavuz was accused of allegedly using the ByLock mobile phone application. |
 | İsmail Ülker | Police chief | 17,06,2018 | Negligence by authorities | İsmail Ülker, a 42-year-old former police chief who was imprisoned for 23 months over alleged links to the Gülen movement, passed away because of delayed cancer treatment. Ülker was reportedly arrested and jailed in July 2016. He became ill in prison and was diagnosed with colon cancer. Ülker was not released nor had he been allowed to seek treatment despite a report provided by a board of doctors about his deteriorating health and his urgent need for treatment. After a number of petitions to authorities, Ülker was finally allowed to undergo medical treatment; however, it was too late and he died in the hospital. |
| Fatih Ç | Police officer | 01,07,2018 | Suicide | Former police officer Fatih Ç., who was dismissed by a government decree under a state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 over alleged links to the Gülen movement, died by suicide in Kahramanmaraş province. Fatih Ç. shot himself with his grandfather’s gun in the Beyoğlu neighbourhood of Kahramanmaraş’s Türkoğlu district. Following his dismissal from his job, 31-year-old Fatih Ç. reportedly experienced severe depression. |
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 | Zeki Güven | Intelligence chief of the Ankara Police Department | 01,07,2018 | Heart attack? | Zeki Güven, the former intelligence chief of the Ankara Police Department who was arrested by a Turkish court in May as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, was found dead in his bed at Sincan No 1 F Type Prison. According to reports in the Turkish media, authorities launched an investigation into the suspicious death of Güven. Güven had been dismissed from his latest position as assistant chief of police in Bolu over alleged links to the Gülen movement in 2015, and later a detention warrant was issued on accusations of being an “executive member of a terrorist organization.” Güven and his wife, Judge Sevda Güven, were detained on May 22, 2018 at a shopping mall in Eskişehir province on allegations of links to the movement. According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, detention warrants issued by Ankara’s 2nd, 4th and 14th high criminal courts were outstanding for Zeki Güven over his alleged involvement in the revelation of a sex scandal concerning Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal in 2010. Judge Sevda Güven was also reportedly wanted over alleged membership in the Gülen movement. Zeki Güven did not have the opportunity to testify in court over the scandal. According to an official statement, Zeki Güven died from a heart attack; however, given previous incidents and deaths in Turkish prisons, his death is viewed as suspicious. |
 | Nesrin Gençosman | 12,07,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Nesrin Gençosman, a 30-year-old Turkish woman who was put in pretrial detention in May 2018 over alleged links to the Gülen movement, died in Ordu, reportedly due to deprivation of the medication she took for pneumonitis. Gençosman was taken from the prison to Ordu City Hospital, where she lapsed into a coma and died. |
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 | Davut Demirkale | Businessman | 14,07,2018 | Suicide | Davut Demirkale, a Turkish businessman who was arrested over his alleged links to the Gülen movement on July 8, 2018 in Mersin, died under suspicious circumstances in prison. Demirkale allegedly hung himself in his cell with a bed sheet and left behind a note saying he could no longer endure the injustice. However, Mersin Siyaset, a local news website, reported that a prosecutor had launched an investigation on the grounds that Demirkale’s death in prison was suspicious. Some media outlets have also claimed that that Demirkale was found dead with his hands tied. |
 | Recep Abdioğlu | Teacher | 24,07,2018 | Negligence by authorities | Recep Abdioğlu, a 53-year-old teacher, died in prison in Trabzon province after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Abdioğlo was jailed in March 2018 over alleged links to the Gülen movement as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting members of the movement. Abdioğlu, a father of five, became unemployed after the closure of a private school by a government decree issued under a state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, due to its alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement. |
 | Sabri Çolak | Academic | 24,07,2018 | Heart attack/ negligence by authorities | Prof. Dr. Sabri Çolak (69), a retired Turkish academic who was jailed over alleged links to the Gülen movement, died in prison. Çolak, who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, died in a high-security prison in Van province from a heart attack. It was known that the professor suffered from cardiac problems. Prof. Dr. Çolak was detained over alleged links to the Gülen movement in the aftermath of a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The Erzurum 3rd High Criminal Court had arrested Çolak. with an interview in a documentary broadcast on Irmak TV and newspapers with photographs of US-based Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen presented as evidence of alleged membership in a “terrorist organization.” The same court had also ruled for the continuation of his imprisonment. Çolak was held in prison for over two years. |
 | Murat Tüfekçi | 20, 09, 2018 | Heart attack/ negligence by authorities | Murat Tüfekçi, who was detained and jailed as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup witch hunt targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement, died after he suffered a heart attack in prison. Tüfekçi had been held in Karabük Prison for two-and-a-half years. | |
 | Mehmet Özbir | 16,10,2018 | Cancer/ negligence by authorities | Mehmet Özbir, 41, died of cancer that developed when he was in pretrial detention over Gülen links and which caused his health to deteriorate significantly due to the lack of medical care in prison. Özbir was arrested in August 2016 as part of a crackdown on the Gülen movement after a coup attempt in 2016 and was jailed for more than 16 months in Manisa on terrorism charges. He was diagnosed with cancer while in prison but reportedly did not receive proper treatment, which eventually led to the amputation of his arm. As his situation worsened, a court ordered his release pending trial. After getting out of jail in December, Özbir started a course of chemotherapy, but his cancer reappeared and he was hospitalized in May. The father of three, Özbir spent his final days in a hospital in Manisa province. |
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| Recep Türk | Postman | 26,11,2018 | Cancer/ negligence by authorities | Recep Turk, a postman, was arrested as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement. He suffered from pancreatic cancer in Samsun Bafra prison while in detention. He was released pending trial when his health worsened, but it was too late for treatment. Türk died in the hospital. | |
| Muhammet Ali Kalo | Military | 14,12,2018 | Suspiciously killed in a military clash | 1st Lt. Muhammet Ali Kalo, 24, was killed while under fire by the Kurdish YPG in the Tel Rifat region of Syria. His elder brother Mustafa Kalo was also a lieutenant in the infantry. He is under arrest on charges of membership in a terrorist organization as part of investigations into the Gülen movement, the number-one nemesis of President Erdoğan. His death was found to be suspicious by officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) with decree-laws during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. They suggested that military personnel previously profiled by Turkish intelligence were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan was one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing some 9,000 profiled names in the TSK. Those on this list are either being dismissed from the military gradually or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there, he said. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the TSK when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist with Turkish news website Oda TV, who knows the TSK well, military officers who have been profiled are used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who lose their lives are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to the operations in Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed very important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to fulfil the special duties given him by the TSK and prosecutors after he was released subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!”(from Müyesser Yıldız's article on Oda TV) |
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 | İbrahim Akbaba | 29,12,2018 | Heart attack/ negligence by authorities | İbrahim Akbaba, an 80-year-old Kurdish man, died of a heart attack in Edirne F Type Prison. Akbaba, a Kurd who was accused by Turkish prosecutors of membership in a terrorist organization, attended his first hearing via teleconference from the prison in Edirne. He went into cardiac arrest during the hearing, according to human rights activist and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu. “Eighty-year old arrestee İbrahim Akbaba died of a heart attack during a hearing that he attended via a Segbis. May he rest in peace. He will be laid to rest in Kızıltepe in Mardin province,” Gergerlioğlu tweeted. |
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| Mehmet Ali Tokel | Math teacher | 6,01,2019 | Lung cancer / Negligence by authorities | After being dismissed from his job under an emergency decree, Mehmet Ali Tokel, a mathematics teacher, was arrested and sent to Antalya Prison on charges of membership in the pro-Gülen union Aktif-Sen. Tokel contracted lung cancer in Antalya Prison but did not receive proper treatment. He was released only when his cancer reached an advanced stage, which turned out to be too late. He died on January 6, 2019 from lung cancer in the prison infirmary. | |
 | Nevzat Atik | Student | 6,01,2019 | Suspicious/murder? | Nevzat Atik, 27, was a military academy cadet. He was arrested on July 18, 2016 but was acquitted after 19 months of pretrial detention on charges of involvement in the July 15 coup attempt. Atik was found dead in a forest in Denizli with a sack over his head. He was trying to make money by working as a waiter. |
 | Habibe Sevinç Çimen | Teacher | 10,01,2019 | Cancer | Habibe Çimen was dismissed from her job by an emergency decree after the July 15 coup attempt. Despite undergoing treatment for cancer and an official report attesting to the fact that she was unable to travel, she was detained in Ankara in June 2018 along with her husband Mustafa and transported to Amasya, some 350 kilometers away, where she was in custody for five days on accusations of membership in a terrorist organization. She was later released, while her husband was arrested. Habibe, who had a difficult time during her cancer treatment and chemotherapy because her husband was in prison and her two young children were in need of care, died on January 10, 2019, leaving her two children, aged 1 and 5, at the hospital where she passed away. |
 | Güngör Önol | Retired noncommissioned officer | 30,01,2019 | Heart attack | Retired noncommissioned officer Güngör Önol, who was arrested in December 2017 in a terrorism-related investigation and incarcerated in the Aydın E Type Closed Prison, died on January 30, 2019 as a result of a heart attack suffered in prison. |
| Ayhan Demir | Accountant | 5,02,2019 | Persecution | Ayhan Demir, who worked as an accountant at a private school, was left disabled due to the torture he suffered at the hands of the counterterrorism unit of the Mersin Police Department. Demir, whose family had fallen apart and who was struggling with psychological as well as health problems, died as a result of the trauma he had experienced. |
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 | Hüseyin Çakır | Court clerk | 28,02,2019 | Cancer /negligence | Hüseyin Çakır, a clerk at the Diyarbakır Courthouse, was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree and arrested despite an ailing spleen. He was kept in prison for 13 months, although he repeatedly submitted petitions stating that he had to undergo surgery. His disease progressed during his incarceration, and it was too late for him when he was finally released. Çakır, the father of two, succumbed to cancer at the age of 33, after having surgery on his spleen. |
 | Saim Uyanık | Principal | 15,03,2019 | Cancer | Saim Uyanık, principal of the Adana Ceyhan Zodiac School, which was closed by an emergency decree during the state of emergency, developed a brain tumor while in prison. He was released pending trial when his health worsened, although treatment of his cancer should have started at an earlier stage. Uyanık, who died in the hospital where he was receiving treatment, was married with two daughters. |
 | Cemil Dilber | Engineer | 21,03,2019 | Heart condition/ negligence | Cemil Dilber, an agricultural engineer, was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack at Afyon Dinar Prison during a meeting with his wife and daughter. Four stents had already been implanted in his heart before his incarceration, and he was taking six different kinds of drugs. He was sent back to prison after undergoing an angioplasty without being allowed to spend even one day in intensive care. He died at the age of 57. According to his wife, Ayşe Dilber, he wrote a petition to the prosecutor every month saying that he had committed no crime and was rotting in prison for nothing. He waited too long to go to the prison infirmary. He had weakened to such an extent that he lost three of his teeth and a significant amount of weight during his two-and-a-half years of incarceration. |
 | Mahir Mete Kul | University student | 8,04,2019 | Drowning | The body of 22-year-old Mahir Mete Kul, a university student who had not been heard from since March 24, 2019, was found on April 8, 2019. He drowned as a result of his boat capsizing while he was trying to cross the Maritsa River to Greece. Kul's body was identified by his family on the Greek side. Studying computer engineering at Istanbul Beykent University, Kul was a chess champion and certified chess coach. Charged with membership in a terrorist organization, he was arrested and jailed for 10 months in 2017 based on secret witness testimony and because he had participated in press statements released by Liseli Dev Genç, an outlawed revolutionary Marxist group. He was released in November 2018 under a travel ban and faced years of imprisonment. He died on March 24, 2019 while attempting to flee to Greece. |
 | Emir Said İnam | Lawyer | 15,04,2019 | Suicide | Emir Said İnam, a 29-year-old lawyer in the Çaycuma district of Zonguldak province, ended his life with a shotgun in his home. Gürkan Altun, president of the Bursa Bar Association, said Inam's father was a teacher who had been dismissed from his job by an emergency decree. "Emir was tired of being branded a traitor," according to Altun. |
 | Yusuf Paçacı | Teacher | 15,04,2019 | Heart attack | Yusuf Paçacı, 39, a sports teacher who had been in Batman M Type Prison for 20 months, died of a heart attack. After being dismissed from his job by an emergency decree, he was arrested as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement and sentenced to eight years, three months in prison. The appeals court upheld his sentence, pending final approval at the Supreme Court of Appeals. He was arrested because of “Social Support Projects” (SODES) he carried out and testimony from informants. During his trial he was questioned about the projects, which he had been legally engaged in under the auspices of the office of the governor. His relatives said Paçacı, who was held in a 14-person ward with 28 other prisoners, experienced depression and frustration because of his tribulations, which triggered his heart attack. He left a 14-year-old daughter behind. |
 | Bekir Bıçakçı | 16,04,2019 | Accident | Bekir Bıçakçı, 77, who had been incarcerated in Isparta E Type Prison for 34 months as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement, fell in the prison bathroom on April 13, 2019 and suffered a brain hemorrhage. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Despite his advanced age and health problems, authorities insisted on keeping this 77-year-old education volunteer in prison. His wife, Gülten Bıçakçı, was not allowed to see her husband one last time before his death. | |
 | Mustafa Çelikbilek | Software expert | 23,04,2019 | Cancer | Mustafa Çelikbilek, a software specialist in the Ankara IT Department at the Ministry of Justice, was detained in a witch hunt carried out against the personnel of that ministry as part of terrorism-related investigations into the faith-based Gülen movement after a coup attempt in July 2016. He was detained on July 30, 2016 along with his colleagues and kept under harsh conditions in detention. He was unable to endure the insults, humiliation and ill treatment he was subjected to during his time in custody. He was arrested on August 11 and sent to Ankara Sincan Prison. According to his cellmates, Çelikbilek's body suddenly became stiff when he was talking to a friend one evening. When foam began to come out of his mouth, his friends immediately called the guards by pressing the emergency button. The guards said: “It’s an epileptic seizure, don’t worry. Lay him on his side. He will be all right in five minutes,” shutting the door to the ward and leaving. Çelikbilek was not hospitalized that evening. Çelikbilek, who later fell from his bunk bed, was not taken to the doctor. When he suffered a third attack, he was finally brought to the prison infirmary. He was taken to a hospital when he collapsed in front of the infirmary physician. Çelikbilek was transported in handcuffs and diagnosed at the hospital with a "brain tumor." His disease progressed because he had not been diagnosed earlier. His lawyer's requests for his release pending trial so he could seek proper treatment in a hospital were rejected by the court. He was kept in prison up until his doctors said his chances of survival were minimal. He was released when they realized he was going to die. He was operated on twice after his release but did not respond to the treatment. He remained in intensive care for a month. Çelikbilek died on April 23, 2019 at the age of 35 leaving behind a grieving spouse, a son and a daughter. |
 | Muzaffer Özcengiz | Teacher | 26,04,2019 | Diabetes/negligence | Muzaffer Özcengiz was a theology and ethics teacher who devoted his life to bringing up good people. He had been incarcerated in Çorum Prison for 27 months, some of which time he had spent alone in a single-person cell although he was over 60 and had advanced diabetes. He was sentenced to 12 years, six months’ imprisonment pending appeal. He was found dead in his cell. He had written a four-page petition to the court four days before his death in which he said that since February 28, 2018 he had been kept in a single cell “without any reason or explanation provided.” He further explained his health situation, illnesses and the details of what his doctor said and requested transfer to a normal ward because he was unable to meet his needs alone, imploring the court not to deprive him of his right to life. According to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and a prominent human rights defender, Özcengiz's petition reveals how he was condemned to death step by step. Gergerlioğlu declared that the passing of Özcengiz was not a normal death but a murder. |
 | İlyas Yıldırım | 03,05,2019 | Cancer | Arrested in a witch-hunt carried out against the faith-based Gülen movement, İlyas Yıldırım was kept alone in cell for 28 months in Karabük Prison despite his monophobia disorder. Before being arrested, he could not sleep alone in a room. The prison administration kept him a one-person cell although it was aware of his disorder. Yıldırım, who also developed skin cancer in prison, was released after his condition worsened. He died in the hospital where he was bein treated. Saying that Yıldırım's health was not good during his stay in the cell, his lawyer added: “Because he was left alone, his psychological state was poor. He suffered spasms in his hands due to his mental distress. I wrote petitions to many places, but I was unable to get him out of his one-person cell.” |
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 | Murat Korkmaz | Lawyer | 12,05,2019 | Heart attack | Murat Korkmaz, president of the Aksaray Lawyers Association, who had a heart condition and a pacemaker, was kept in prison for 18 months as part of investigations into the faith-based Gülen movement. The battery of his pacemaker died while he was in prison. He was belatedly released and died at the age of 48 of a heart attack. He was married with two children. |
 | Cahit Şen | Police officer | 31,05,2019 | Cancer | Cahit Şen, a policeman working at the traffic registration branch of the Erzincan Police Department, was dismissed from his job three days after the July 15 coup attempt on the grounds that he was using the ByLock messaging application. He was arrested on September 6, 2016 on charges of membership in the faith-based Gülen movement (a terrorist organization in the eyes of the government) and faced mandatory retirement due to age while in prison. He was released on March 14, 2017 and acquitted on November 28, 2017. He had remained in prison for six months and 12 days. Şen filed a lawsuit on the grounds that he was unfairly arrested. Şen, who developed cancer while in prison, said in his petition: “I was marginalized. My family was left alone. I got cancer due to sorrow, stress and the harsh conditions in prison. There was an acid factory next to the prison. We had to breathe the smoke from there. When the weather was cold, we hung our clothes in the ward. I got sick from a combination of the smell of acid and detergent, polluted air and sorrow. I was diagnosed with lymphoma.” He was awarded damages for his loss. Şen, who was undergoing treatment while his lawsuit proceeded, died on May 31, 2019, before seeing the final decision. |
| Unborn baby | 31,05,2019 | Abortion | Gülden Aşık was incarcerated in Bandırma Prison. She was pregnant and experienced a delay in referral to a hospital. As a result, she had to undergo an abortion and lost her baby. | ||
 | Dündar Kaya | Imam | 13,06,2019 | Negligence | Retired imam Dündar Kaya, who was held in İzmir Aliağa Prison for a year despite his advanced age and illness, passed away while in intensive care. Kaya weighed nearly 200 kilos due to the medications he took and had been in the hospital for a month. |
 | Yavuz Bölek | Chief of police | 16,06,2019 | Cancer/negligence | Yavuz Bölek, 52, a former police chief who was dismissed from his job on January 9, 2015 following corruption probes implicating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2013, died of colorectal cancer on June 16, 2019 in İzmir’s Aliağa Prison, where he had been held since his arrest in August 2016 on terrorism and coup charges. On March 31, 2015, the 3rd Antalya High Criminal Court launched a separate investigation and issued a detention warrant for Bölek over alleged spying and illegal wiretapping. However, Bölek refused to surrender because he believed the operation was an act of revenge by the government for the 2013 corruption investigation that implicated dozens of people, including businessmen, senior bureaucrats and the sons of three now-former ministers of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. After living on the run for almost a year, Bölek was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in May 2016 and underwent chemotherapy at an Antalya hospital. Despite providing the court with a doctor’s report confirming his deteriorating health, he was arrested by a court on August 25, 2016 and sent to prison. According to his family, because of the unprecedented pressure in prison, the cancer spread rapidly, and Bölek had a stroke and subsequently brain surgery. Days after the operation, despite his doctor’s warnings, he was returned to the prison, where he suffered another stroke. Despite his worsening health and several doctors’ reports, Bölek remained in prison. He eventually died on June 16, 2019. |
 | Canan Deniz | Teacher | 17,06,2019 | Suicide | Canan Deniz, a teacher who was dismissed from her job by an emergency decree, shut the door to her room and committed suicide after returning from visiting her husband in prison. She left two children behind. Deniz had been a teacher for 15 years. She became unemployed when the educational institution where she worked was closed by an emergency decree due to its affiliation with the faith-based Gülen movement. She could no longer teach because she was prohibited from doing so by the emergency decree. The Deniz family moved to Denizli province due to financial problems and moved into the lower floor of Canan’s parents’ home. Judicial processes were added to the financial problems. Her husband, Yılmaz Deniz, who was like her a teacher at schools affiliated with the Gülen movement, had a traffic accident in June 2018. He was arrested by the police officers who arrived at the scene. Yılmaz Deniz was sentenced to six years, three months in prison and sent to Denizli Prison. Left alone with her adolescent son and daughter, she started taking medication for severe depression. She was hospitalized several times due to pain in her body, a cleaning obsession and psychological problems. She was looking for a job to improve her mental state but was unable to find one because of the stigmatization she had suffered. Canan Deniz returned home on June 17, 2019 after visiting her husband with her children in Denizli Prison. She went to her room and committed suicide by hanging herself. |
 | Tayyar Özel | Student | 23,07,2019 | Suicide | While he was studying abroad on a scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Tayyar Özel was deprived of his funding by an emergency cabinet decree. With the same decree his passport was cancelled. His Ph.D. was also invalidated. Thus, he was obliged to repay the thousands of dollars for the scholarship he had received. No longer able to endure the persecution, Özel died by suicide in New York. |
 | Ali Ayverdi | Private sector | 24,07,2019 | Brain tumor/negligence | Arrested in a witch hunt carried out against the faith-based Gülen movement in Eskişehir, Ali Ayverdi, regional manager of Sürat Kargo Eskişehir, died after undergoing brain surgery. Ayverdi had not been sent to the hospital for months and was not released from prison even though he was unable to live alone. In a social media campaign, his relatives called on the Ministry of Justice to release Ayverdi, who suffered from amnesia and psychological problems, so that he could get proper treatment. But the ministry remained insensitive to the calls. Although his disease progressed during his last days in prison, he was not sent to the hospital. When Ayverdi’s condition worsened, he was hospitalized and had an operation after which he died. He was sent to his death by authorities who turned a deaf ear to the calls for his release. Ayverdi was married and had two sons. |
| Fatih Karaahmetoğlu | Police | 29,07,2019 | Suicide | Fatih Karaahmetoğlu, a former police officer who was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree, was found dead in an apparent suicide at his home in the northwestern province of Bolu on July 29, Turkish media outlets reported. Karaahmetoğlu, 26, was found hanged on a natural gas pipe in his house. An investigation was launched into his death. Following his expulsion from his job, the former police officer reportedly began to study guidance and psychological counselling at Abant İzzet Baysal University in Bolu. Karaahmetoğlu had been fired over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, designated by the government as a terrorist organization. |
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| Unborn baby | 29,09,2019 | Abortion | Hanife Çiftçi, a mother of three, was taken into police custody when she was two months pregnant. Although she suffered bleeding while in custody she was arrested on July 5. Her bleeding continued in prison and she had to undergo an abortion. | ||
 | Tacettin Toprak | Teacher | 24,08,2019 | Cancer | Tacettin Toprak, a teacher, suffered from bladder cancer, although his requests for release were denied three times. When he was not allowed to seek treatment in Manisa Prison, the cancer spread to his lung. Not released until the last moment, Toprak died in the intensive care unit before the eyes of his loved ones. He left two children behind. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and a prominent human rights defender, called on the court for Toprak’s release on August 8, noting that despite doctors’ reports Toprak was kept in prison, because of which his illness progressed. In reaction to the court Gergerlioğlu said: “Will you keep him until death? Are you going to release him in a coffin?" |
 | Ömer Güni | Military officer | 1,09,2019 | Heart attack | Staff Col. Ömer Güni was dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces by an emergency decree issued after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. He faced several investigations over the course of three years and was accused of membership in the faith-based Gülen movement, designated as a terrorist group by the Turkish government. Despite medical reports showing that his heart was working at 20 percent, he was held in Sincan Prison for eight months. Unable to endure the sorrow and stress he had undergone after his release, Güni died of heart attack on September 1. He was on medical leave when the coup attempt took place. He was arrested and jailed, although he proved that he was on sick leave on July 15 at his father's home. Güni’s health worsened during his incarceration. He was released from prison on health grounds because the administration became concerned that he might die in prison. Güni's wife, who worked as a social services specialist, was also dismissed by an emergency decree. Having two daughters, the family also had to cope with financial problems. |
 | Kemal Bilici | Teacher | 11,09,2019 | Heart attack/negligence | Kemal Bilici, a teacher in Manisa who was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree and arrested after the July 15 coup attempt, died in the third year of his incarceration. He was, along with 18 colleagues, sentenced to seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment in Manisa. Bilici reportedly was in good health when he was arrested but started to experience psychological problems due to the difficulties he faced in prison. Bilici was overwhelmed by pressure from his acquaintances. He was diagnosed with “depression emanating from a closed space” in prison and started to take medication for it. After using the drugs, he began to experience such problems as a mental disorder and limitation and slowness in his movements. He was ultimately unable to speak on the phone. His family reported that the drugs were too much for him to tolerate. But the prison administration continued to give him the medications without a comprehensive health check. Bilici’s situation was so serious that he was unable to fully understand his family's warnings. Upon the prison administration’s observation that Bilici's situation was getting worse, he was sent to the Manisa Mental and Neurological Disease Hospital on August 22. He died on Wednesday, September 11, while receiving treatment in the hospital. According to the initial findings, Bilici died of a heart attack. Bilici was married with two children. |
| Ahmet Hamdi Nedim Gerginci | Shop owner | 19,09,2019 | Heart attack | Ahmet Hamdi Nedim Gerginci, a 51-year-old shopkeeper from Şanlıurfa province, died of a heart attack while waiting in prison for the implementation of a "hospitalization" referral. He had hypertension and was jailed in Şanlıurfa for 20 months. His death was caused by a delayed referral to a hospital despite a heart condition. Gerginci, who was referred to the cardiovascular department of Sanliurfa Mehmet Akif Inan Teaching and Research Hospital, was waiting to be taken to the hospital. Despite the referral the prison administration failed to transport him to the medical facility. Gerginci had been arrested because of his alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. |
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| Kamuran Turgut | Teacher | 15,09,2019 | Heart attack | Kamuran Turgut, a teacher who was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree-law as part of a witch hunt started after the coup attempt on July 15, was arrested and kept in Silivri Prison for one year despite a heart condition. He underwent bypass surgery after his release. Turgut died of a heart attack while driving in Ümraniye. His car was stopped by barriers on the road. Turgut had three sons. |
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 | Mustafa Said Zenbil | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Mustafa Said Zenbil was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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 | Meltem Zenbil | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Meltem Zenbil was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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 | Kevser Sezer | Housewife | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Kevser Sezer was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
| Mahir Işık | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Mahir Işık was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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| Mustafa Kara | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Mustafa Kara was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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| Gülsüm Kara | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | Gülsüm Kara was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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| İbrahim Işık | 27,09,2019 | Drowning | İbrahim Işık was one of seven people who died when their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea off the island of Chios. Accused of links to the faith-based Gülen movement, all of them were fleeing persecution by Turkish authorities, seeking safety in Greece. The Turkish refugees were buried on Chios. 1-Mustafa Said Zenbil -- 12 years old 2-Meltem Zenbil -- 40 years old 3-Kevser Sezer -- 58 years old 4-Mahir Işık -- 4 months old 5-Mustafa Kara -- 6 years old 6-Gülsüm Kara -- 8 years old 7-Ibrahim Işık -- 3 years old |
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 | Bilal Gülfidan | Military officer | 15,10,2019 | Cancer | Turkish Military Academy cadet Bilal Gülfidan, who decided to become an officer when he was a teacher, developed cancer in Sincan Prison, where he was detained. He submitted medical reports to the court several times to secure his release, but all were rejected. He was released, like many other sick prisoners, when his cancer worsened, too late for effective treatment. Gülfidan, who was hospitalized in Izmir after his release in April 2019, died on the morning of October 15, 2019 at a young age. |
 | Çelebi Bozbıyık | Military | 15,10,2019 | Killed in a military clash under suspicious circumstances | 1st Lt. Çelebi Bozbıyık was killed in the Syrian city of Manbij on October 15, 2019 during Operation Peace Spring, carried out by Turkey east of the Euphrates River. After the coup attempt in July 2016, Lt. Bozbıyık, handcuffed from behind, was detained in his unit in Şanlıurfa for 15 days on charges of terrorism. He was later released and sent to the front in Syria while his investigation was underway. He would have been discharged from the army and declared a “traitor” had he survived the military operation. Bozbıyık was entitled to a higher rank but was not promoted due to an ongoing investigation into him. It took one year for Bozbıyık to get what he deserved. Yet, being stigmatized, he was always marginalized and constantly sent to conflict zones. His death was found to be suspicious by officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) with decree-laws during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. They suggested that military personnel previously profiled by Turkish intelligence were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan was one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing some 9,000 profiled names in the TSK. Those on this list are either being dismissed from the military gradually or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there, he said. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the TSK when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist with Turkish news website Oda TV, who knows the TSK well, military officers who have been profiled are used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who lose their lives are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to the operations in Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed very important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to fulfil the special duties given him by the TSK and prosecutors after he was released subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!”(from Müyesser Yıldız's article on Oda TV) |
| Mustafa Ali Mutlu | Military | 18,10,2019 | Cancer | Gendarmerie Sgt. Mustafa Ali Mutlu was 34 years old. He was arrested and put in prison, where he developed stomach cancer triggered by depression. After his release he failed to respond to treatment and died. He was the father of a 9-month-old baby. | |
 | Zekeriya Altınok | Police officer | 22,10,2019 | Killed in a terrorist attack under suspicious circumstances | Zekeriya Altınok was a police officer who was dismissed from his job on the grounds he was a “terrorist” after the July 15 coup attempt due to his alleged links to faith-based Gülen movement, a group highly critical of the government and its number-one nemesis. After 16 months in prison, he joined the military to do his compulsory service. He was sent to the Iranian border even though he was still standing trial on terrorism-related charges and was dismissed from the police for the same reason. He was killed during a border patrol on October 20, 2019 in a rocket attack launched by the PKK. His death was found to be suspicious by officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) with decree-laws during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. They suggested that military personnel previously profiled by Turkish intelligence were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan was one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing some 9,000 profiled names in the TSK. Those on this list are either being dismissed from the military gradually or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there, he said. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the TSK when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist with Turkish news website Oda TV, who knows the TSK well, military officers who have been profiled are used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who lose their lives are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to the operations in Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed very important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to fulfil the special duties given him by the TSK and prosecutors after he was released subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!”(from Müyesser Yıldız's article on Oda TV) According to those sources Altınok’s death follows the same pattern and was hence suspicious. |
 | Engin Erol | Teacher | 20,12,2019 | Cancer | Engin Erol was a teacher who was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree. He was also in prison for three years, three months over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. He developed cancer in Erzurum H Type Prison but was kept waiting for three months before being transferred to a hospital. In the meantime, his cancer had progressed to stage 4 due to his lack of treatment but was hospitalized only when his condition worsened in prison. A mass was detected on the left and right sides of his abdomen in the hospital. Although his doctors said he should be released for the duration of the treatment, he was kept in prison. Erol filed more than 20 petitions about his condition, all of which were disregarded by the authorities. When he was at last released, Erol was unable to respond to the treatment and died soon after at the age of 41. Erol was married with three children. After his release Erol reportedly said to his relatives: “They let inmates die in prison. There are two more in the same situation as me. Pray for them.” |
| Süeda Çeliktürk | Student | 16,01,2020 | Suicide | Süeda Çeliktürk was a 19-year-old university student studying in Eskişehir. He was traumatized after his father, teacher Kadir Çeliktürk, was incarcerated. He committed suicide by jumping into the elevator well of an apartment building in Istanbul, where he had gone for treatment. |
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 | Adem Gürbüz | Military | 21,01,2020 | Suicide | Lt. Adem Gürbüz committed suicide by hanging himself in the pulpit of a mosque in Istanbul. It was found quite significant that someone committed suicide in a mosque, a house of God, according to Islam, which categorically forbids suicide. He was sent to the front line in Syria at a time when he was accused of membership in a terrorist organization and was tortured when he returned alive. One day he reportedly said to his family, "If it had not been disgraceful, I would have shown you traces of torture on my body." According to Colonel Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces when he was serving as military attaché in Greece: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) Lt. Gurbuz was one of them. While his trial on terrorism-related charges was still ongoing, he was fighting on behalf of his country in Syria. After his return he was assigned to the 95th Armored Brigade Command in Tekirdağ. He continued to serve in this unit until August 30, 2018, when his three-year contract expired. His contract was not renewed, unusual for an officer who had participated in a military operation. Stigmatization and marginalization never left the war veteran after his departure from the army. Once branded as a traitor, it was not possible to get rid of this stigmatization. He returned to his family in Erzurum. But the stigmatization followed him there. Depressed, he returned to İstanbul, hoping to find a job. He worked mostly in menial jobs. Yet, it was not always possible to find those kinds of jobs. On January 22 he ended his life in a mosque after the night prayer. This was the first known suicide in a mosque in Turkey. Perhaps Gürbüz wanted to protest the indifference of his fellow Muslims to the great suffering caused by the persecution inflicted by the Erdoğan regime. |
 | Medenî Arifoğlu | Businessman | 25,01,2020 | Cancer/negligence | Medenî Arifoğlu, a businessman who was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on allegations of membership in the faith-based Gülen movement, died of cancer, according to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) who had been following the businessman’s case for almost three years. In 2010 Arifoğlu was recognized by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his “extraordinary contributions to the Turkish economy.” Gergerlioğlu said the businessman was repeatedly denied release from prison despite having a burst appendix and being diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. “He was racked with pain. I submitted parliamentary questions many times. I mentioned his name in my speeches in parliament. He was eventually released from prison. But it was too late. He was ruined,” Gergerlioğlu tweeted. Arifoğlu reportedly lost over 45 kilograms during his time behind bars. A court ruled for the confiscation of his properties, including his house, stores and vehicles. |
 | Fatih Saylak | Military | 10,02,2020 | Killed in a military clash under suspicious circumstances | Infantry Cpl. Fatih Saylak, 26, was killed in an attack by the Syrian army in the city of Idlib on February 10, 2020. Saylak’s name was mentioned in an indictment drafted by the Istanbul public prosecutor as part of investigation no. 2017/2619, which means he would have been tried on terrorism-related charges had he survived the military operation. He shared the same fate as noncommissioned officer Ökkeş Karaca, who had earlier been killed in Operation Euphrates Shield, carried out by the Turkish army on Syrian soil. Both Saylak and Karaca were from the village of Kale in Kahramanmaraş province, and both their names were mentioned in the indictment. The names of the fallen soldiers were included in the indictment based on the depositions of informants. According to those depositions Saylak and Karaca were affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement, a group extremely critical of the government of President Erdoğan, who has designated the movement a terrorist organization and launched a witch hunt against its adherents. Despite these depositions, the two were, strangely enough, sent to the most dangerous part of Syria, where they were killed. Former officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces by decree-laws during a state of emergency declared after a coup attempt in July 2016 pointed out this fact and suggested that military personnel previously profiled by the Turkish intelligence service were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan was one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing some 9,000 profiled names in the TSK. Those on this list are either being dismissed from the military gradually or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there, he said. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the TSK when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist with Turkish news website Oda TV, who knows the TSK well, military officers who have been profiled are used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who lose their lives are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to the operations in Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed very important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to fulfil the special duties given him by the TSK and prosecutors after he was released subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!”(from Müyesser Yıldız's article on Oda TV) |
 | Akif Akçadağ | Military | 27,02,2020 | Killed in an armed clash under suspicious circumstances | Noncommissioned infantry Sr. Sgt. Akif Akçadağ, 29, was killed in an alleged Russian army attack carried out in the Syrian city of İdlib against the Turkish troops deployed there. He was the brother of two other officers who were dismissed from the military by emergency decree-laws enacted after a coup attempt in July 2016 on the grounds of alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, the number-one enemy of Turkish President Erdoğan. His two brothers were tried on the same grounds. This fact casts doubt on the death of Akçadağ. Was he sent intentionally to the front line to have him killed there? Some former officers dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces by decree-laws during the state of emergency suggested that military personnel previously profiled by Turkish intelligence were deliberately sent to the front lines in Syria. Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan was one of them. Alkan claimed, in an interview with journalist Çağlar Cilara, that there was a list containing some 9,000 profiled names in the TSK. Those on this list are either being dismissed from the military gradually or sent to the front lines in Syria to be killed there, he said. Col. Halis Tunç, who was dismissed from the TSK when he was serving as military attaché in Greece, takes this claim one step further: “When the operation against Syria started on August 24, 2016, many detained officers/non-commissioned officers were released pending trial at different times to be sent to the operations area. Although their trials were underway, they were sent to the operation in Syria after their travel bans were removed.” (From his article on 15 July.info) According to Müyesser Yıldız, a journalist with Turkish news website Oda TV, who knows the TSK well, military officers who have been profiled are used on the border, beyond the border and on dangerous missions. Those who lose their lives are declared martyrs, while survivors are dismissed and arrested on terrorism-related charges. “Do you know that many soldiers who went to the operations in Iraq and Syria were put under arrest on the day of their return? There is one in particular who performed very important duties after July 15 [coup attempt], fought in Al Bab and Afrin, was detained upon his return, and was again sent abroad several times to fulfil the special duties given him by the TSK and prosecutors after he was released subject to a travel ban and judicial supervision. After all this, he was recently suspended!”(from Müyesser Yıldız's article on Oda TV) |
 | Kemal Küçük | Imam | 26,02,2020 | Suicide | Kemal Küçük was a retired imam. He was distraught about terrorism-related charges leveled against his son, a military officer, as part of investigations into the faith-based Gülen movement. Küçük, who became depressed as a result of the injustice, ended his life with a rifle in the Aksu district of Antalya. |
 | Halime Çalışkan | 4,04,2020 | Accident/suicide | Halime Çalışkan, 30, died after she reportedly lost her balance on the balcony of her apartment, which was on the fourth floor of a building in the western Turkish province of Çanakkale. The possibility of a suicide is also under consideration as Halime had been taking anti-depressants for two weeks before her death. She was unable to visit her husband in prison due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy and human rights activist Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu. Her husband, an academic, has been in jail for two years due to his alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. Her father has also been in jail for three-and-a-half years on the same charges. She leaves behind a 2-year-old daughter, Elif Zehra Çalışkan. |
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 | Özgür Doğan | Teacher | 7,04,2020 | Cancer/negligence | Özgür Doğan, a 42-year old former teacher of literature, died from lung cancer on April 7 after his belated release from prison. He was dismissed from his job by an emergency decree and put under arrest on September 22, 2016. He sentenced to eight years, nine months’ imprisonment pending appeal on charges of links to the faith-based Gülen movement. Doğan was diagnosed in prison with lung cancer, which progressed quickly, reaching stage 4. He underwent chemotherapy for five months, shuttling between the hospital and his prison cell under unhygienic conditions. His requests for release on health grounds were rejected despite a medical report urging the same. He had to wait two more months to obtain a medical report from the İzmir Institute of Forensic Medicine indicating that his medical condition precluded incarceration. He was then released in September 2019, which proved to be too late to recover from his cancer. Doğan was married with three children. |
 | Yunus Ankaralı | Military | 28,04,2020 | Suicide | Yunus Ankaralı, dismissed from the army by an emergency decree-law after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, committed suicide with his gun in the Serdivan district of Sakarya province. Ankaralı, aged 27, shot himself when his family was out. He had been divorced from his wife for a year and also unemployed, which distressed and depressed him. |
 | Ahmet Burhan Ataç | 07,05,2020 | Cancer | Nine-year-old Ahmet Burhan Ataç succumbed to cancer the same day he was taken to a hospital. He had been grappling with bone cancer for almost two years and had developed the condition at a time when his parents were sought by authorities on terrorism-related charges. His father, Harun Reha Ataç, has been in prison for more than two years because he had worked at a student hostel affiliated with the faith-based Gülen movement, an act that is tantamount to membership in an armed terrorist organization in the eyes of Turkish authorities. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. His mother, Zekiye Ataç, was arrested the same day as his father, only to be released two-and-a-half months later pending trial. Along with his illness Ahmet Burhan had to endure deprivations flowing from the Turkish government’s persecution of his parents. His fragile body had stopped responding to treatment some time ago. His cancer progressed and quickly reached stage 4. A tumor had been removed from his shoulder blade, but the cancer spread in no time to his lung. He missed his father and could not make sense of his absence. Social media campaigns aimed at securing the release of his father proved to be of no avail. A ray of hope emerged when he was accepted at the Immun Onkologisches Zentrum in Cologne for treatment. Yet, his mother, prohibited from traveling abroad, was prevented from accompanying him, and he had to fly to Germany with his grandmother. Yet, he was inconsolable and wanted his mother with him. After the first round of treatment he went back to Turkey. For the second round, his mother and human rights activists launched a new social media campaign to get her travel ban lifted so she could accompany her son for treatment in Germany. Yet, she was rejected by the authorities at the airport, and they had to return home. She managed at last to have her travel ban repealed. But they were already late for the second round of treatment in Germany. The doctors sent them back to Turkey, saying Ahmet Burhan could no longer tolerate the treatment. He died on May 7, 2020. |
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 | Sabri Kaya | 20,05,2020 | Negligence | Sabri Kaya, taken to intensive care three times after he suffered a heart attack and brain hemorrhage, died on May 20. Kaya, whose heart was working at 25 percent capacity, had a heart attack and brain hemorrhage on March 25. He was taken to the intensive care unit three times and was sent back to prison because, according to the authorities, his health was good enough. He suffered intestinal bleeding in Osmaniye Number 2 T Type Closed Prison, causing him to shuttle between the hospital and the prison. He was finally released on May 20 and hospitalized at Çukurova University’s Balcalı Hospital, where he died the same day. | |
 | Vefa Kartal | 31,05,2020 | Suicide | Vefa Kartal, sentenced to life imprisonment for membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), reportedly hanged himself in a prison in Edirne, a city on the Turkish-Greek border. He had reportedly been on a death fast in other prisons where he was previously held. Kartal’s remains were taken by the police and buried without the participation of his family. | |
 | Caner Durukan | Healthcare worker | 03,06,2020 | Cancer | Caner Durukan, 42, a Turkish healthcare worker dismissed from his job in a post-coup purge, succumbed to cancer in a hospital after his release from prison. Dismissed from his job by an emergency cabinet decree in 2016, Durukan was detained in 2017 and sent to a prison in the Central Anatolian province of Nevşehir. Durukan constantly complained of kidney pain during his one year of incarceration, but the prison authorities refused to send him even to the prison infirmary. Once released under judicial supervision, he went to a hospital for a medical examination, where he was diagnosed with cancer, say his friends and close relatives. Doctors observed during an operation on Durukan that a tumor in his intestines had spread to his liver due to his belated diagnosis. He tried to cling to life for two-and-a-half years, until he succumbed to cancer on June 3 in a hospital ward. Up until one month before his death, he had to report to a police station as part of his judicial supervision. Durukan was married with two children. |
 | Haluk Savaş | Psychiatry Professor | 30,06,2020 | Cancer | Haluk Savaş, 54, a leading human rights activist and a victim of a large-scale post-coup purge in Turkey, lost his battle against cancer on June 30. Savaş was a psychiatry Professor at Gaziantep University until he was fired by a government decree in 2016 following a coup attempt on June 15, 2016. He was later arrested over alleged links to the Gülen movement. In November 2016 he was released pending trial due to a cancer diagnosis, and after one year of treatment he was cured. However, the cancer returned in early 2019. For months he struggled to obtain a passport, despite later being acquitted by a court, to travel abroad in search of a treatment for the cancer. He was finally allowed to travel overseas last May, but the belated treatment produced no positive results. Savaş was a dedicated and vocal advocate of other victims of Turkey’s purge and established a YouTube channel called KHK TV as well as several local platforms to amplify the voices of the victims. |
 | Yusuf Uzun | Accounting Teacher | 07.08,2020 | Cancer | Yusuf Uzun, 36, an accounting teacher who was dismissed from his job in a post-coup purge, lost his battle with cancer after his release from prison, where he was unable to get proper treatment. Uzun was detained after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. He was held only briefly but was dismissed from his job with an emergency decree-law promulgated during a state of emergency declared after the failed coup. He was later detained again and put under arrest, spending 10 months in prison. During the time he was incarcerated, Uzun developed edema in his foot and could not get proper health care although the severity of the edema increased by the day in prison, also causing a delay in the cancer diagnosis. After his release, he was diagnosed with cancer. He died on August 7 after three years of battling cancer. Along with the cancer, he had to fight a legal battle. His case was pending appeal at an appeals court. He left behind a grieving widow and two children. |
 | Mevlüt Öztaş | Journalist | 19,08,2020 | Cancer | Journalist Mevlüt Öztaş, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while in jail, died on August 19 after his belated release from prison despite a medical report recommending it, leaving behind a grieving wife and four children. Öztaş was arrested in February 2018 as part of a post-coup purge of the faith-based Gülen movement and sentenced to nine years, three months in prison in February 2019 for his eight years of work at the Gülen-affiliated Cihan news agency. His sentence was upheld by an appeals court. Öztaş was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April 2020 in prison. He previously had a hernia and then gall bladder surgery during his detention. He developed kidney and liver failure and hypertension due to prison conditions. His asthma worsened. His repeated requests to be released on parole on health grounds were rejected. A regional court also refused to release him despite a medical report from an Ankara hospital deeming him unfit to remain in prison. When he was at last released on June 23 upon appeal, the cancer had spread to his intestines, liver and lymph nodes. He underwent chemotherapy at a hospital for about two months as an outpatient. He was hospitalized 10 days ago when his situation became critical. In this process, his kidneys completely failed. The doctors decided to discontinue the chemotherapy because his body could not withstand it. |
 | Fatih Terzioğlu | TV Director | 22,08,2020 | Cancer | TV director Fatih Terzioğlu, 40, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer during his 21-month incarceration on terrorism charges, died on August 22 following his release from prison in mid-July due to an intensive social media campaign. Terzioğlu’s wife, Esra, had conducted a campaign on social media for the release of her husband, who was put behind bars as part of a post-coup purge of the faith-based Gülen movement, a dissident group that has long been persecuted by the Turkish government. The wife said the negligence and slowness of officials had caused Terzioğlu’s situation to worsen. His health deteriorated significantly due to poor prison conditions, especially difficulty in accessing medical treatment and unhygienic and crowded facilities. Terzioğlu was sentenced to six years, three months for membership in the Gülen movement, labelled as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government and accused of masterminding a failed coup on July 15, 2016. The movement strongly denies any involvement in the abortive coup or any terrorist or violent activity. He had worked for the now-closed Samanyolu TV, a Gülen-affiliated television network in Turkey. |
 | Ali Boçnak | Cleric (mele) | 23.09.2020 | Cancer | Ali Boçnak (76), who was detained in 2009 for conducting a religious ceremony in his mother tongue of Kurdish, has passed away in prison. Boçnak had advanced prostate cancer, a brain embolism, difficulty breathing and renal failure. He underwent an operation in August, during which he caught an infection. His family appealed for his release several times due to his multiple health problems, which were all rejected by the court. The prison administration did not allow his family to see Boçnak in person on the day he died, although they had permission from the prosecutor. Boçnak was detained as part of an operation against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization that includes the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He was sentenced to seven years, eight months in prison, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in 2017. Boçnak was serving his sentence at Ağrı Patnos Prison in eastern Turkey. Human rights activist and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu described his situation as a travesty of justice. “Boçnak was an old man who was terminally ill, and his sentence should have been delayed.” Gergerlioğlu said he presented this issue to parliament but had not received any answers. |
 | Cengiz Karakurt | Teacher | 22.09.2020 | Aortic valve regurgitation | Cengiz Karakurt (41), a former teacher arrested for alleged membership in the Gülen movement, was declared brain dead on Wednesday after having passed out in his prison cell on September 15. Karakurt had open-heart surgery 10 years ago for aortic valve regurgitation. He had been sick in prison for a while and taken to the hospital several times, only to be sent back with antibiotics for treatment of a cold, according to his wife, Hatice Karakurt. He had been taken to the hospital on September 14, where he was told that there was no health reason necessitating his release from prison. He was put in a solitary cell for COVID-19 quarantine, although he had prior health problems that required monitoring. After collapsing in his cell he was admitted to intensive care and was declared brain dead a week later. A day after he was declared brain dead, his release from prison was issued. Karakurt was arrested on April 16, 2018 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had been dismissed from his job by a government decree. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and an MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said Karakurt’s death was a result of gross negligence. “There is a pattern in the negligence of prisoner health. Their lives should not be this worthless.” |
 | Ömer Develioğlu | Police officer | 19.09.2020 | ALS | Ömer Develioğlu was summarily dismissed from the Turkish National Police with a decree in the aftermath of the abortive putsch of July 15, 2016. He was arrested and tortured. He was later released. |
 | Takiyettin Özkahraman | Teacher | 17.09.2020 | Respiratory insufficiency | Özkahraman (75) was arrested in Muş, Malazgirt 3 years ago and has been in prison since. He was hospitalized due to respirotary insufficiency and passed away in hospital. His brother Sadullah Özkahraman claimed that Takiyettin Özkahraman was ill for the past two months but at times was not allowed to go to hospital. He also said two petitions that they have submitted to request to delay Takiyettin Ozkahraman's sentence went unanswered. |
 | Enez Karaağaç | Cadet | 21.09.2020 | Cancer | Enez Karaağaç was a Navy cadet who was summarily dismissed from the Navy following the abortive putsch of July 15, 2016. |
 | Fatma Aşkın | Homemaker | 15.09.2020 | Cancer | Fatma Aşkın, a breast cancer patient who was arrested on Feb.14 in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep due to her alleged links to the Gülen movement, has experienced a spread of the disease during her one-month stay in prison and has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, according to a report on the Bold Medya news website. Aşkın, 52, who had a mastectomy due to cancer in 2017, was arrested as part of operations targeting the Gülen movement, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup in July 2016. The movement strongly denies any involvement in the failed coup. Aşkın used to help students in need, and photos showing her providing iftar [fast-breaking] dinners at her home for students were included in her dossier as evidence of her membership in the Gülen movement, which has been called a terrorist organization by the Turkish government. When Aşkın was first arrested, she had no complaints related to cancer, and the disease was under control; however, she was recently hospitalized due to stomach pain. Tests showed that the cancer had spread to her liver and bones since her arrest and that she is now a stage 4 cancer patient. A relative of the woman who spoke to Bold Medya said Aşkın’s condition was not so poor before her arrest. “She should immediately be released pending trial so that she can have proper and sustainable treatment. I am really concerned about her health,” said the relative, adding that Aşkın was very much saddened by the removal of her two children from state jobs due to alleged Gülen links. |
 | Rasim Can | Teacher | 10.09.2020 | Cancer | Rasim Can was a teacher orking at a private school. Following the abortive putsch of July 2016 he was summarily dismissed from his job and banned from practicing his professsion. He died in Ankara after 2 years of treatment. |
 | Mustafa Barış Avıalan | Military officer | 15.10.2020 | Cardiac insufficiency, pleural effusion, COPD and cardiac cirrhosis. | Avıalan was a decorated officer and led the Turkish General Staff’s project department. He was convicted on coup-related charges and was handed down 141 aggravated life sentences on June 20, 2019. |
 | Mehmet Erdoğan | Child | 29.07.2020 | Complications caused by general anesthesia | Six-year-old Mehmet Erdoğan was the son of a purged teacher, Rasih Erdoğan, who has been in prison in the southeastern city of Kahramanmaraş for two-and-a-half years on fabricated terrorism charges for his alleged links to the Gülen movement. Mehmet had undergone surgery for the removal of a cyst in his arm and died unexpectedly due to complications caused by the general anesthesia. He couldn’t see his father one last time after a public prosecutor did not allow Rasih Erdoğan to visit his son before the surgery. |
 | Medeni Arifoğlu | Businessman | 25.01.2020 | Cancer | Medeni Arifoğlu was a Turkish businessman who was jailed over alleged links to the Gülen movement. He succumbed to cancer after he was belatedly released from prison despite his deteriorating health. Arifoğlu’s passing was announced by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of the Turkish parliament and a leading human rights defender who has been following the businessman’s case for almost three years. “He was arrested during the state of emergency. His assets were seized. The authorities insisted on keeping him in prison despite the fact that he had a liver transplant,” Gergerlioğlu said. “He faced every kind of negligence in terms of his health. His appendix burst. He got cancer and was in a miserable situation. They did not suspend the execution of his sentence.” “I repeatedly submitted parliamentary questions about him. He was ultimately released, but it was too late,” Gergerlioğlu said. |
 | Ömer Günerigök | Teacher | 08.06.2020 | Cancer | Ömer Günerigök, 31, was a teacher who was purged from his job and prosecuted by the authorities in Turkey’s post-coup crackdown. He was first dismissed from his job, then detained for a week on terrorism-related charges on the grounds that he was a member of the faith-based Gülen movement. He was reinstated to his job three months later but was this time transferred as punishment to another school. He was finally acquitted of all charges last summer. |
 | Selman Çalışkan | Child | 20.09.2020 | Cancer | Selman, 7, was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago. He underwent surgery in June 2019 to remove a five-centimeter tumor and was partially paralyzed after the operation. His father, Rasim Çalışkan, a teacher imprisoned on alleged links to the Gülen movement, was only allowed to visit his son twice during his illness, once following the surgery and once one month before Selman’s death. Çalışkan filed numerous requests to delay his sentence or to serve the remainder under house arrest, but his petitions were all rejected. |
 | Cengiz Karakurt | Teacher | 22.09.2020 | Aortic insufficiency | Cengiz Karakurt, 41, was a teacher summarily fired from his job with an executive degree in the aftermath of July 15, 2016 coup attempt. He was sentenced to 10-months-imprisonment for alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement. Karakurt was found “fit to stay in prison” only eight days before his death by a hospital. |
 | Ahmet Kaplan | Police officer | 10.11.2020 | Cancer | Ahmet Kaplan, 48, was a police officer fired from his job and arrested after a failed coup attempt in July 2016 for alleged affiliation with the Gülen Movement. He was sentenced to seven years, six months in prison. He was diagnosed with lung cancer on October 16, 2020 but was not able to receive proper treatment because the hospital could not accommodate inmates. |
 | Gülhan Çolakoğlu | Teacher | 11,11,2020 | Cancer | Gülhan Çolakoğlu , 45, was a chemistry teacher at a Gülen movement-affiliated preparatory school that was shut down after a coup attempt in July 2016. She was unable to receive treatment abroad after Turkish authorities refused to issue her a passport due to alleged ties to the movement |
 | Hüseyin Özen | 14.11.2020 | COVID-19 | Hüseyin Özen, 59, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on alleged links to Gülen movement. He died of COVID-19 after he wasn’t able to receive treatment on a timely manner. | |
 | Yusuf Kurt | Air force cadet | 20.11.2020 | Cancer | Yusuf Kurt, 25, was a former student at the Turkish Air Force Academy. He was among 70 air force cadets sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of attempting to destroy the constitutional order by means of a coup attempt in July 2016. Kurt was released from prison after sentencing in January due to his deteriorating health. |
 | Ümit Gökhasan | Police officer | 22.11.2020 | Cancer | Ümit Gökhasan was a former police superintendent who was not released from prison until his cancer had spread to other parts of his body. He was imprisoned due to alleged links to the Gülen movement. |
 | Fatma Görmez | Teacher | 11.01.2020 | Heart and kidney related complications | Fatma Görmez, 43, was a teacher fired from her job by an emergency decree-law due to alleged links to Gülen movement. She was hurriedly buried without giving her jailed husband, who was imprisoned for alleged links to the movement, the opportunity to attend her funeral. |