Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan uses his powers to pardon prisoners over health issues in a discriminatory way that violates the principle of equality before the law, human rights defenders say.
Erdoğan this week used his presidential power to pardon two inmates; a disabled former bomb disposal expert who stayed in prison for 20 months over terror-related charges and a prisoner who was sentenced to 24 years for charges of drug trafficking and threatening people with a gun.
In 2020, Erdoğan used the same powers to release a man who was sentenced to life in prison due to his part in the 1993 Sivas massacre, one of the deadliest events in Turkey in which 37 people who gathered for a festival of Alevi faith were burnt alive by Islamists. In 2019, the Turkish president pardoned three inmates; two were convicted of wilful murder and one of qualified robbery.
Both prisoners pardoned by Erdoğan this week have serious health issues, but with more than 1,500 inmates waiting for their release due to health problems, the discretionary powers of the president violate the principle of equality before law, human rights activists told Artı Gerçek.
“Pardoning only two inmates while many of them are forced to stay in prison though they are not fit to live on by themselves contradicts with the principle of equality before the law,” said Çiğdem Kozan, the spokesperson of the Lawyers for Freedom Association’s Ankara Branch’s Prisons Commission.
The Institute of Forensic Medicine, which plays a critical role in determining the medical conditions of inmates, keeps even those in very critical conditions in prison, Kozan said, adding that the reports of the institutions prioritise political conjecture rather that medical facts.
According to the April report of the Human Rights Association (İHD), there are at least 1,517 inmates with health problems in Turkish prisons and 651 of them are in critical condition. In the first four months of this year, 30 prisoners died in jail due to health issues, including three inmates over the age of 80.
“The circular that regulates the president’s pardoning powers should be changed and those powers should be used indiscriminately for inmates who are in critical condition,” said Nuray Çevirmen, a member of İHD’s prison commission.
“As civil society organisations, we have been following the case of 85-year-old Mehmet Emin Özkan who is in prison. This person has been experiencing health issues for some time, has been hospitalised, but he cannot benefit from the president’s pardoning powers,” said Berivan Korkut, the coordinator of the Civil Society in the Penal System Association.
Özkan, who has numerous medical problems including high blood pressure, osteoporosis, hearing and vision deficiency, and memory loss, has been in prison for 26 years despite the fact that his case was reopened eight years ago as evidence suggested that he played no part in the high-profile murder case he was convicted for.
His daughter told Artı Gerçek that when she had visited her father last week, the old man could not speak and had been suffering memory loss. According to Selma Özkan, her father does not receive equal treatment just because he is a Kurd.
The case of Kurdish politician Aysel Tuğluk is also mentioned by civil society activists as a prominent example of unequal treatment before the law.
Fifty-seven-year-old Tuğluk, who has been diagnosed with dementia, is kept behind bars despite a report by the Forensic Medicine Institute that acknowledged that her condition was likely to decline and that the dementia would advance in prison conditions.
