Yusuf Özkan, a former teacher imprisoned over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, died of a heart attack on Thursday at Konya Ereğli Prison, according to the TR724 news website.
Özkan reportedly collapsed in his ward after playing football on the prison field and could not be revived. He had been dismissed from his job by a government decree amid a post-coup purge and was later sentenced to six years, three months on terrorism charges, of which he had served nearly two years. He is survived by a wife and two children.
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 an 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.
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.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
