Turkish doctor who headed fight against leprosy, illiteracy dies

Ankara: Colleagues say Turkan Saylan, a doctor who battled leprosy in Turkey and founded a secularist association devoted to providing educational grants for poor children, has died. She was 74.

The Association to Support Contemporary Life says Saylan died in a hospital in Istanbul early on Monday after a long battle with cancer.

Saylan founded the group in 1989. Since then it has provided grants to thousands of poor students, especially girls, and built schools in Turkey's impoverished regions.

Last month, police investigating an alleged secularist plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government searched the group's premises and detained several members for questioning.