İbrahim Yakut, an associate professor who was arrested in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016 due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, has not been given his medications for the 11 months he has spent in jail, the aktifhaber news website reported on Tuesday.
Immediately after the putsch the ruling 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.
Yakut, a computer engineer, was removed from his post at the computer sciences department of Anadolu University by a government decree and was subsequently arrested and sent to Silivri Prison in İstanbul.
Yakut was suffering from bipolar disorder at the time of his arrest, and the lack of his prescribed medication has reportedly caused his condition to worsen, leading to fears that he might try to commit suicide in prison.
There have been dozens of people who committed suicide or died under suspicious circumstances in prison among the more than 50,000 who have been jailed due to links to the Gülen movement following the failed coup.
