The situation of sick prisoners in Turkish prisons continues to deteriorate. Political prisoner Adnan Yalçın has not been treated for five years despite being seriously ill.
Political prisoner Adnan Yalçın has been imprisoned for 24 years in different prisons in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan. At the moment, the prisoner with cancer is imprisoned in the H-type prison in Antep. His sister Nurcan Yalçın tells that her brother was operated for stomach cancer in 2015 and part of his stomach had to be removed. During the treatment he suffered a heart attack and since then his condition has deteriorated progressively. At the moment he is no longer able to take care of himself. Although the hospital certified him incapacitated, he was not released.
How many more will come out of prison dead?
Nurcan Yalçın explains: “He will be left to die, like hundreds of other prisoners. My brother has been seriously ill for five years and is not being treated. If this isn’t torture, what is it?”
Yalçın recalls that 48 sick prisoners died in custody in 2019: “Most recently, 74-year-old Nebi Ilhan died in Siirt prison. This must finally come to an end. How much longer are corpses to come out of the prisons?”
We condemn the AKP policy
Yalçın criticizes that rapists or criminals responsible for massacres are released while the sick prisoners die in prison. Among other things, she points out the release of Ahmet Turan Kılıç, who had been sentenced for his involvement in the massacre of Sivas, and said: “As families of prisoners, we condemn this policy of the AKP. While people with an AKP-related attitude are released one by one, the sick prisoners remain in detention. This must end.”
Yalçın calls on the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the European Court of Human Rights to act.
According to the human rights association (IHD), 1,333 sick prisoners are behind bars in Turkey and 457 of them are seriously ill.