A 42-year-old woman serving a sentence on conviction of links to the Gülen movement said in a letter to a lawmaker that she was recently diagnosed with cancer but did not have access to proper healthcare in prison, the Tr724 news website reported.
Former public servant Gülten Nene was diagnosed with breast cancer while in a prison in southern Mersin province. In an open letter to Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Nene said her diagnosis was delayed due to inadequate medical care in prison.
She has appealed to authorities for her release to seek proper medical care and is awaiting a decision.
“It took 10 months to get a definitive diagnosis after the symptoms started because my hospital appointments kept getting canceled. My first hospital visit was on April 22, 2024. It was only five months later that I was able to get an ultrasound, and 10 months from the initial hospital visit a biopsy was carried out. I don’t know what stage I have, but I can’t sleep from the pain and can’t eat due to the vomiting. I have been losing a lot of weight. I have two children, I want to live,” Nene said in her letter.
Nene was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. Her conviction was based on activities such as depositing money in Bank Asya, subscribing to certain newspapers and attending religious gatherings — actions the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled do not constitute a crime.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as members of his family and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began pursuing its followers. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
According to Law No. 5275, the sentence of a prisoner who due to a serious illness or disability is unable to manage life on their own under prison conditions and who is not considered a serious danger to society may be suspended until they recover. However, the stipulated suspension of sentence is often not implemented.
Nene explained that unsanitary and crowded prison conditions only worsened her health problems.
According to M. Nene, his wife’s doctor also recommended her release, saying there was a relatively large tumor in her breast that needed urgent treatment and that she would have access to much better healthcare at home.
Turkish authorities have been frequently 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.
