Dismissed educator Nuriye Gülmen, who has been on a hunger strike for 113 days to protest her dismissal under state of emergency decree-laws, has said justice is dying just as her muscles are melting, the Diken news website reported on Friday.
Gülmen sent her message through Ankara Bar President Hakan Canduran, who paid her a visit in prison.
The Turkish Constitutional Court has rejected a petition for the release of two fired educators, Gülmen and Semih Özakça, who were on 76th day of hunger strike when they were arrested on terror charges on May 23 in Ankara in the wake of a botched coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
The court argued that being in prison did not pose a threat to the lives and physical or moral integrity of Gülmen and Özakça.
Canduran told Diken that Gülmen and Özakça were arrested in order to prevent their deaths, which would have caused public outrage, and that they are being kept half-dead by a doctor in prison.
Canduran commented on the health of Gülmen, who he said, could only sit with a neck rest and could not use her arms or hold a pen.
Gülmen was fired from Konya Selçuk University, and Özakça was a teacher at a primary school in Turkey’s eastern province of Mardin before he was purged over ties to a “terrorist” organization.
Thorbjørn Jagland, the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, said on Monday that he asked Turkish Prime Minister Yıldırım to release the educators. (turkishminute.com) June 30, 2017
