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, the Kronos news website reported.
A purge launched after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016 is continuing to cause great suffering among victims.
Deprived of their liberties on trumped-up charges, stripped of their livelihoods, exposed to formal or informal discrimination and devoid of all hope that things will improve any time soon, many victims of the purge have proven to be easy prey for mortal diseases such as cancer.
Durukan is one of them.
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.
