Asaleddin Çelik, a 52-year-old former English teacher imprisoned over alleged ties to the Gülen movement, died of cancer on Sunday, shortly after his release from prison, the Tr724 news website reported.
His death follows a prolonged battle with lung cancer that began seven years before his arrest and worsened dramatically during his incarceration to the point where he was unable to receive visitors and suffered multiple seizures.
Çelik was arrested and sent to Düzce prison in 2023 after a six year, three month sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals. Before his incarceration Çelik had worked as a teacher in Gülen-affiliated schools, serving in countries including the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan before returning to Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by the late Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members and designated it as a terrorist organization in May 2016. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding.
The severity of Çelik’s declining health prompted Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu to raise the case in parliament in June, questioning why he was not released on medical grounds.
“I’ve received terrible news from the family of Asalettin Çelik regarding his condition,” Gergerlioğlu told parliament. “According to the family, Çelik is undergoing cancer treatment, has had lung surgery and is struggling even to stand. He is unable to recognize those around him and is not even aware when he soils himself.”
Çelik lost consciousness on July 24 and was hospitalized in intensive care. Though the court ordered the postponement of his sentence on August 15, the decision came too late as he was beyond recovery and died in the hospital where he was receiving treatment.
Responding to the death, Gergerlioğlu expressed grief over what he described as another victim of the ongoing purge. “Asalettin Çelik, a 52-year-old English teacher, had become unable to stand in prison. Most of the time he was not conscious, could not meet his own needs and failed to recognize those around him,” he said. “Despite this severe condition, he was kept in prison. When his situation had already reached a critical stage and he was at death’s door, he was transferred from prison to the emergency ward, and then to intensive care, where he died. We witnessed negligence, silence and an end that was clearly foreseeable.”
Çelik’s case highlights broader concerns about prisoner healthcare in Turkey.
Turkish authorities have frequently been criticized for their systematic disregard of the health needs of prisoners. Every year rights groups report the deaths of dozens of sick prisoners, either while behind bars or shortly after their release, which often comes at the end-stage of their illness. Turkey recorded 709 deaths in prison in the first 11 months of 2024, according to data from the Ministry of Justice shared in response to a parliamentary inquiry.
