Bekir Güven is 98% disabled. He was formally arrested on 20 September when his 22-month sentence for posts he had shared on social media in 2015 was ratified. Güven was released on 11 October following the ratification of a medical report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine recommending the “suspension of his sentence on health grounds”.
Bekir has been diagnosed with Huntington’s disease (which effects neurons in the nervous system causing loss of movement). He and his wife Rukiye spoke to the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) about their lives and what they went through during the process of Bekir’s detention.
Güven was born in 1966 in Siverek in Urfa province, and his family later moved to Söke in Aydın. He and his wife Rukiye met while they were both working with the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) during the period of the September 1980 military coup. At that time Güven was imprisoned for 3 years. Rukiye explained how they met: “We were both TKP members at the time, we both went to prison. We met at the police station. We married in 1987. In the period after we were released from prison we took part in the struggle for democracy. He was arrested [again] in Mersin when we were living there in 1991. He was sent to Malatya Prison. He was in Malatya Prison for a year.”
‘Witness to hunger strikes’
Rukiye said that Bekir had been witness to a number of historical events: “He was witness to the post-coup hunger strikes in the prisons in 1984. In 1989 we moved to Istanbul, where we took part in trade union activities. He witnessed the massacres in Gazi and Sivas. We have personally experienced events which have brought about great changes in Turkey.”
She said that they had left active politics in 2000 for economic reasons, and that in 2006 they had settled in Eskişehir and opened a bookshop. They became active once again in 2015, this time with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP): “The HDP was the closest to our ideas, we saw the HDP as the place for democratic struggle. As my husband’s illness progressed, he could not take part in activities, but I started to take part.”
‘Comments in the file that he had not shared’
Rukiye told of the process they had been through in the case against Bekir. “The inquiry began in 2015, on the grounds that he had commented on a news article shared on social media. But there were also comments on the file that he had not shared. They charged him with sharing ‘Biji PKK’ [Long Live the Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and ‘Biji YPG’ [Long Live the People’s Defence Units]. As someone who has been through the legal process, my husband would never share comments that constitute an offence. But we could not prove this in court and they sentenced him to 22 months and 5 days without doing any investigation into it. We asked for a video hearing, the judge saw him and asked some questions about his illness. His sentence was ratified on 27 November 2017, but his lawyer missed it somehow, they didn’t know about it. The summons came in January. We got no response from anywhere we applied to as there was no way to revert a ratified sentence. His nerves and stress in that period caused Bekir’s disease to progress still further.”
‘Taken by Black Maria
Rukiye said that Bekir was formally arrested despite his 98% disability, and explained what they went through afterwards: “On 20 September he was taken to the Execution of Sentences Institution in Eskişehir. When he was first put in prison they put him in a one-man cell with just a bed. He couldn’t eat his food on his own. He couldn’t even knock on the door to make himself heard, he couldn’t go to the toilet, he couldn’t wash on his own. He was taken to the hospital on the intervention of the Human Rights Association, the bar association and a social media campaign. He was a little more comfortable there. I was his carer. They said he would go to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Istanbul by ambluance, but he was taken by Black Maria. When the Institute changed the date suddenly, he was taken to Istanbul at 3 am by Black Maria.”
‘They put him in handcuffs’
Bekir has difficulty speaking, but he managed to say a little about what he had been through: “I’ve been there. The prisons are not suitable for the sick. Sick prisoners should be released straight away. When they took me before the [medical] board one of the police tried to put me in handcuffs. It was the worst three days of my life.”
Rukiye said that what they had done to him was unconscionable: “We have been fighting for human rights for many years. We know that what Bekir was made to go through is unconsionable, I evaluate this as conscience putrefied”
Call to the Ministry of Justice
Rukiye said that the Forensic Medicine Institute issued a 6-month suspension of Bekir’s sentence due to his illness, and that the prosecution extended this to a year. “It would be much easier for us if they would convert his sentence to house arrest. In a year’s time his illness will have progressed much further, the doctors know this, there is no cure. We’re going to go through this process all over again. He did not have a fair trial, the verdict was issued without investigation. We call on the Ministry of Justice to dismiss the verdict and let him be tried at the Supreme Court.”
‘Release the sick prisoners’
Rukiye said that it was not only her husband that went through these experiences: “We see it on social media, hundreds of people are in poor conditions in the prisons, there are thousands of sick prisoners. I want this situation to be corrected within the framework of the rights accorded to people as human beings. Our problem was solved in a three week process but there are thousands of prisoners and families who have been experiencing the same problem for years on end. Sick prisoners should be kept on house arrest. We see bodies coming out of the prisons, it’s such a sad situation, it doesn’t matter what the case is; the sick, the disabled and the elderly in prison should be let go.”
