TV director Fatih Terzioğlu, who was held in an İstanbul prison for 21 months where he was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer, has been released, according to the tr724 website.
Terzioğlu’s wife, Esra, was conducting an intensive campaign on social media for the release of her husband, who was put behind bars due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup in July 2016. The movement strongly denies any involvement in the abortive putsch.
The director was released from prison after a hospital in İstanbul issued a medical report requiring his sentence be postponed due to his critical condition.
Terzioğlu was sentenced to six years, three months for membership in the Gülen movement, labelled also as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.
He had worked for the now-closed Samanyolu TV, a Gülen-affiliated television network in Turkey.
The director’s wife recently tweeted that doctors said her husband had only a year to live.
Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown on followers of the movement under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, as a result of which more than 130,000 people were removed from state jobs while in excess of 20,000 others are still in jail and some 600,000 people have been investigated on allegations of terrorism.
Those in jail include women with babies and pregnant women as well as critically ill and elderly people.