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Bayrak is chairman of AB Grup Holding, which he founded in 1999, and has investments in crypto currency, construction, tourism and energy sectors.

My gog, but it’ll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin’ up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an’ tryin’ to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin’ and ditherin’, with their hands that dozzened an’ slippy from lyin’ in the sea that they can’t even keep their grup o’ them.”

The government says Grup Yorum has links to the outlawed Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, which has carried out suicide attacks and is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU.

Grup Yorum’s protest has drawn support from across Turkey’s music scene and internationally, including statements of solidarity from the American folk singer Joan Baez, who has performed with the band in the past.

Gökçek, a bass guitarist, is the second member of the banned left-wing folk music band Grup Yorum to die in just over a month after launching hunger strikes over the Turkish state’s treatment of their band: 28-year-old Helin Bölek, a singer, died on 3 April after 288 days of fasting.