8-year-old cancer patient denied passport due to father’s alleged links to Turkey’s Gülen group


Date posted: November 21, 2019

Ahmet Ataç, an eight-year-old kid with stage four bone cancer, has reportedly been denied a passport by Turkish authorities due to the his father’s ongoing imprisonment over alleged links to Turkey’s Gülen group.

The group is accused by the government of masterminding a coup attempt in 2016.

According to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a pro-Kurdish deputy in Turkey, Ahmet’s father has been held in prison for over 19 months on terror and coup charges. His mother was also detained several times over the past month on similar charges.

Ahmet has a stage 4 bone cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year relative survival rate for the most advanced stage of bone cancer, or osteosarcoma, is only 27 percent. Ahmet’s mother says that scientists at the Immune-Oncological Centre in Cologne (IOZK) may actually have a way to cure her son, if he is given a passport to go to Germany, of course.

Turkey survived a military coup attempt on July 15 that killed over 240 people and wounded more than a thousand others. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen group, inspired by US-based Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.

Source: Turkey Purge , November 20, 2019


Related News

PA State Rep. Margo Davidson reflects on her visit to Turkish refugees in Greece

We heard about mothers being imprisoned right after birth in Turkey. And it’s just really a horrible shame; and that they’re still being tracked by the Turkish government at this point is just really frightening. Turkey had achieved democracy, but now it’s under a single person’s rule–which is what we call a dictatorship.

Halki, pope, patriarch and Gülen

The way Turkey’s chief political Islamist and new president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has approached the reopening of the Halki seminary, a school that had trained Eastern Orthodox clergy for the Patriarchate for more than a century until it was forcibly shut down in 1971, represents a fundamental flaw in the thinking of so-called Islamists, who place more emphasis on symbolism than substance and like very much to employ divisive and hateful discourse as opposed to reaching out and embracing different faiths and cultures.

US says Turkey favors Sunni Islam over other creeds

A US State Department report has claimed that the Turkish government is prejudiced in favor of its Sunni Islamic citizens and neglects the needs of members of the country’s other minority religions, in addition to frequently employing anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Erdoğan prepares for a bloodbath

Erdoğan’s ruling party has also begun issuing weapons permits to loyalists, especially through the Ottoman Youth Authority (Osmanli Ocaklari). I have previously reported Erdoğan’s appointment of former general Adnan Tanriverdi, the head of SADAT, to be his military counsel. Tanriverdi had been dismissed by the Turkish General Staff during the 1997 soft coup and appears bent on revenge against the secular order.

Mother with disabled son and daughter detained over alleged coup involvement

Hatice Kökoğlu, the mother of a disabled son and a daughter, has reportedly been detained in Kütahya province over alleged links to the Gülen movement. However, the two disabled children were left alone after their mother was recently taken into custody as part of an investigation launched by the Kütahya Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Should Hizmet establish a political party?

If the Hizmet movement had believed that services to Turkey can best be provided through politics, it would have done so from the beginning. Civil society has a special place in democracies. One can also serve the country by rejecting democratic pressures and upholding rule of law and individual freedoms.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

Trustees seize control of schools in government-led move

Turkish Olympiad students visit top level gov’t officials in Ankara

Bangladeshi scholar publishes book on Gülen

Turkey’s Erdogan vows to cut off revenues of Gulen-linked businesses

Calgary man accused of helping plot Turkish coup

Alevi leader Kenanoğlu: Discrimination against Alevis increased in 2013

Mozambican minister: I will mention success of Turkish schools on every occasion

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News