Turkish authorities refused to allow the jailed daughter of ailing prisoner İbrahim Güngör, who died behind bars on September 7, to attend his funeral on Monday, the TR724 news website reported.
Sueda Güngör, a university student, was arrested on June 20 over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement after months of campaigning for her father’s release, facing accusations similar to those that led to his conviction.
Together with family members, she repeatedly appealed for her 72-year-old father’s release on health grounds, but their pleas were ignored. İbrahim Güngör suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and prostate problems and had been hospitalized several times in recent weeks. In late August he was transferred from Menemen Prison to İzmir City Hospital with respiratory failure and a high fever, where he was treated in intensive care before being sent back to prison despite his critical condition.
Güngör had served as director of student affairs at İzmir Gediz University, a Gülen-linked institution shut down by a government decree after a 2016 coup attempt. He was accused of hosting religious gatherings with the members of the Gülen movement, encouraging participation in its activities and collecting donations for students. He was sentenced to over eight years and had been in prison since December 14, 2024.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following the abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) had ruled in April that İbrahim Güngör was fit to remain in prison. The ATK frequently comes under criticism over its questionable reports that find ailing inmates fit to remain in prison. Rights advocates slam the agency over its lack of independence from political influence and its role in compounding the persecution of political prisoners.
According to Law No. 5275, the sentence of a prisoner who due to a serious illness or disability is unable to manage life on their own under prison conditions and who is not considered a serious danger to society may be suspended until they recover. However, the stipulated suspension of sentence is often not implemented.
According to the latest figures from the Justice Ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted for alleged links to the Gülen movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under investigation nearly a decade later.
