İbrahim Yıldırım, a former member of Democratic Regions Party (DBP), Mehmet Candemir, and lastly Bazo Yılmaz died in prison in Turkey as a result of terminal illnesses despite medical reports stating that they should not have been imprisoned, reported Mezopotamya News Agency.
İbrahim Yıldırım, 68, charged with being a member of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) was put into Elazığ High Security Prison in 2014 and was sentenced to seven years. Two years after his imprisonment, a tumour in his brain led him to lose his right eye.
Yıldırım who had 96 per cent disability also had high blood pressure and goitre disease. ANF reported that the prison authorities informed the family that Yıldırım died due to a heart attack. He was due for release on 25 August.
Another prisoner Mehmet Candemir, 60, who was a former member of DBP was sentenced to 17 years in Giresun Espiye Prison, a city in Turkey near to the Black Sea in 2016. Candemir was accused of participating in “illegal” elections commissions set up by HDP, and was sentenced for ‘support of a terrorist organisation’ and suffered torture by prison guards as reported by ANF.
His relatives said that Mehmet Candemir did not have any indication that he had cardiac problems. “We spoke to my brother on the phone last Friday. He said that he was fine and that we shouldn’t be worried about him,” said Ahmet Candemir.
However, the prison authorities informed the Candemir family that Mehmet Candemir died due to a heart attack.
Lastly, Bazo Yılmaz, 67, a seriously ill prisoner jailed in Şanlıurfa T Type Closed Prison also died. Yılmaz, who had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), was surviving only with an oxygen device. Although Yılmaz was taken to the Turkish state’s Forensic Medicine Institute on February 8, 2021, a report that he could “stay in prison” was given to him by the authorities. An appeal to the Constitutional Court was also rejected.
Nuray Çevirmen, a member of Turkey’s Human Rights Association (İHD) talked to Deutcsche Welle and Medya Haber TV about the situation of sick prisoners in Turkey and gave information about the death of İbrahim Yıldırım and Mehmet Candemir.
Based on the reports of IHD, Çevirmen said that the two prisoners were put into cells although they had medical reports stating that they should not stay in prison.
Çevirmen added that there are a total of 1,517 seriously ill prisoners in Turkey’s prisons and 651 of them have terminal illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure, cholesterol and prostate problems.
For the year of 2021, a total of 1,572 appeals had been submitted to the Civil Society in the Penal System (CISST) about mistreatment, torture and neglect in Turkish prisons and 181 of them were made by seriously ill prisoners.
From the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2021, at least 59 seriously ill prisoners of 600 fatally sick prisoners had died.
