Prof. Dr. Sabri Çolak (69), a retired Turkish academician who was jailed over alleged links to the Gülen movement, passed away in prison on Friday morning.
According to a report by online news outlet TR724, Prof. Dr. Çolak who was sentenced to 7,5 years in prison died in a High-Security Closed Prison in Van province due to a heart attack. The report said it has been known that Prof. Dr. Çolak has heart troubles.
Sabri Çolak’s body will reportedly be handed over his family after his autopsy. The funeral ceremony for Çolak will be held in Pasinler district in Erzurum province.
The TR724 wrote that Prof. Dr. Çolak was detained over his alleged links to the Gülen movement in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The Erzurum 3rd High Criminal Court had arrested Çolak by showing his interview to a documentary broadcasted in Irmak TV and the newspapers with photographs of US-based Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen as evidence of being a member to an alleged “terror organization.” The same court had also ruled for the continuation of his imprisonment.
The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) reported in one of its studies titled “Suspicious Deaths and Suicides In Turkey” that there has been an increase in the number of suspicious deaths in Turkey, most in jails and detention centers, where torture and ill-treatment are being practiced. In the majority of cases, authorities concluded they were suicides without any effective, independent investigation.
Suspicious deaths have also taken place beyond prison walls amid psychological pressure and threats of imminent imprisonment and torture, sometimes following the release of suspects or just before their detention. SCF has compiled 120 cases of suspicious deaths and suicides in Turkey in a list in a searchable database format.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey have been the subject of legal proceedings in the last two years on charges of membership in the Gülen movement since the coup attempt in July 2016, a Turkish Justice Ministry official told a symposium on July 19, 2018.
“Legal proceedings have been carried out against 445,000 members of this organization,” Turkey’s pro-government Islamist news agency İLKHA quoted Turkish Justice Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Faruk Aydıner as saying.
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.
The post Turkish professor, jailed over alleged Gülen links, passes away in prison appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-professor-jailed-over-alleged-gulen-links-passes-away-in-prison/
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