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Jailed hunger striker Gülmen taken to intensive care unit ahead of hearing

The lawyers, who were also defending the jailed hunger striker teachers Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça, were detained just days before the teachers’ trial began.

Jailed teacher Nuriye Gülmen, who has been on a hunger strike for 202 days, has been taken against her will to the intensive care unit of Ankara Numune Hospital, the Evrensel daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the report Gülmen, who was being kept in a prison hospital, was taken from her room at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday to be transported to another hospital. Doctors from the Ankara Chamber of Doctors and her lawyers were not allowed to visit her.

Lawyer Aytül Kaplan said Gülmen was conscious and that she would have attended a hearing that will take place in two days if she hadn’t been taken to the hospital.

ATO Chair Onur Karahan said Gülmen is going to be kept in the intensive care unit under supervision and that they have not been given permission to see her.

Gülmen had made a request to attend her hearing on Sept. 28.

Gülmen and jailed hunger striker teacher Semih Özakça were not brought to court for the first hearing of their trial on Thursday at the insistence of the gendarmerie, which claimed there was a potential threat to the lives of the teachers and inadequate personnel at the courthouse to handle it.

The educators were on the 76th day of a hunger strike to protest their dismissal by statutory decree when they were arrested on terror charges on May 23 in Ankara.
Gülmen and Özakça said their strike aims to draw attention to the situation of more than 150,000 dismissed state employees.

The Turkish government started a crackdown on the opposition in the wake of a botched coup attempt on July 15, 2016 and arrested more than 50,000 and dismissing or suspending around 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants.

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