Jailed Turkish academic Nuriye Gülmen missed her father’s funeral after the Justice Ministry failed to respond to a request for temporary leave, her lawyers said in a statement on X.
The People’s Law Office (Halkın Hukuk Bürosu), which represents Gülmen, announced her father’s death on October 30 but did not specify when it submitted the request.
Gülmen, a dismissed academic who has been jailed since August 2020, remains in custody during her retrial on charges of membership in the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), a militant Marxist group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and several other countries as well as the European Union.
Under Article 116(2) of Turkey’s Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures, pretrial detainees may be granted up to two days of leave, excluding travel time, to attend a close relative’s funeral under security escort. Permission requires a recommendation from the head of the prison and approval from the chief public prosecutor’s office, provided the leave does not jeopardize the proceedings or security.
The lawyers did not say whether they had contacted either authority.
In May 2022 the İstanbul 28th High Criminal Court sentenced Gülmen and co-defendant Yasemin Karadağ to 10 years in prison each. The Supreme Court of Appeals later overturned their convictions, citing an incomplete investigation, and ordered a retrial.
At the first retrial hearing in January 2026, the court denied both women’s requests for release, citing flight risk.
Dismissed under an emergency decree following a coup attempt in July 2016, Gülmen staged a sit-in in Ankara demanding reinstatement. She later went on a prolonged hunger strike along with dismissed teacher Semih Özakça.
In November 2017 Gülmen’s father said police had threatened his family in an effort to pressure his daughter to end her hunger strike. He also called for her reinstatement, saying the family wanted to return to normal life.
The Human Rights Association (İHD) said in its 2025 report on Turkish prisons that denials of permission to attend relatives’ funerals or visit seriously ill family members were among the forms of ill-treatment it documented.
