A 21-year-old psychology student recovering from spinal surgery who is being held in pretrial detention over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement has been denied transfer to a hospital despite repeatedly losing consciousness and a prison doctor’s referral.
According to the Bold Medya news website, Meryem Yılmaz, who suffers from severe curvature of the spine, underwent spinal surgery last year and is still recovering. She fainted while in police custody after her detention on June 9 and has continued to lose consciousness in jail. Although the prison doctor suggested in a referral that she visit a neurologist and an orthopedic surgeon, she has not been taken to a hospital.
Yılmaz was among 40 university students detained in nationwide operations conducted in 11 provinces targeting people accused of links to the Gülen movement. She was arrested on June 12 and sent to İzmir Şakran Women’s Prison.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Following the detentions, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), said the students had been prevented from meeting with their lawyers and that prosecutors were attempting to take their testimony without legal representation.
The evidence cited against Yılmaz includes a previous investigation into her father over alleged Gülen links and the family’s travel abroad.
Yılmaz’s family said her arrest during the week of final examinations prevented her from taking the exams and could force her to extend her studies by at least one semester.
According to the latest figures from the justice ministry, more than 126,000 people have been convicted of alleged links to the movement since 2016, with 11,085 still in prison. Legal proceedings are ongoing for over 24,000 individuals, while another 58,000 remain under active investigation nearly a decade later.
