Forty-two-year-old Deniz Hakan Şen, who was detained by Turkish police and later jailed by a court in October 2017 over alleged links to the Gülen movement despite medical reports showing that he was suffering from an advanced state of cancer, died on Monday.
Despite repeated appeals made for his release, he was kept in prison by the Turkish judiciary. He was also denied by prison authorities the opportunity to seek necessary medical treatment. Şen, who used to be a pharmaceutical sales representative, had been arrested on coup charges.
According to a Twitter message posted by prominent Turkish human rights defender Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Şen requested urgent medical treatment in 45 petitions. However, his petitions were ignored for 60 days by the relevant authorities while he lost more than 35 kilograms and his weight dropped from 85 to 50 kilograms during his time in prison.
It was reported that he was finally allowed to visit a doctor some 60 days after his first petition to prison authorities to seek medical treatment. The authorities also showed no sensitivity to his family’s repeated calls for his release. According to his friends, it was too late when he was eventually released on February 19, 2018.
