Turkish court sentences Gülen sympathizer, who lost 52 kg in jail due to lack of medical care, to 8 years in prison

Savaş Uyar, a 41-year-old public accountant in Turkey’s Giresun province who lost 52 kilograms during months-long pre-trial detention has been given 8 years of prison sentence over his alleged links to the Gülen movement.

“They did not believe me when I said my husband is extremely sick with tumors along his throat. He was given 8 years in jail. They have blatantly left him to die. May God hold you accountable for this,” a Twitter account believed to be of Savaş Uyar’s wife wrote on Saturday.

Savaş Uyar was briefly jailed due to his accounting contract with some companies seized over their alleged links to the Gülen movement in June 2016. Having spent some time behind bars in pre-trial detention on charge of “abetting a terror group,” he was released on judicial probe. However, a month after his release, Uyar was arrested once more to spend nearly 2 years in jail on similar charges this time around, Yeni Hamle online news portal reported in March, this year.

Several Twitter accounts said Savaş Uyar has been suffering from 4 different health problems including goiter, vitamin deficiency and reflux, all of which have caused him to lose 52 kilograms over the past 22 months in pre-trial detention in Giresun Prison.

Main opposition Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrikulu has constantly urged the government to release Savaş Uyar for medical treatment, to no avail.

Uyar’s two children, aged 9 and 16, have been receiving psychological treatment over their father’s jailing, Tanrikulu also said.

Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.

Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15. On December 13, 2017 the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on April 18, 2018 that the Turkish government had jailed 77,081 people between July 15, 2016 and April 11, 2018 over alleged links to the Gülen movement. (SCF with turkeypurge.com)

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from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-court-sentences-gulen-sympathizer-who-lost-52-kg-in-jail-due-to-lack-of-medical-care-to-8-years-in-prison/