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Serdar Yıldırım, a Kurdish activist serving nine years in prison for terrorism charges, has been waiting for three years for Turkey’s Constitutional Court to issue a ruling on his appeal for release on health grounds, Mezopotamya Agency reported.
Yıldırım suffered an accident in 2009, severely damaging his spine. He has had close to 40 platinum pins installed along his spine and has been wheelchair bound ever since.
He was arrested in December 2018, after his prison sentence was upheld by the Court of Cassation. Evidence in relation to the charges of membership of a terrorist organisation and recruiting for a terrorist organisation was provided by a secret state witness statement.
After a month behind bars, on 10 January 2019, Yıldırım was the subject of a report from a public hospital in southeastern Mardin province (Mêrdîn) stating that he could not take care of his own basic needs on his own. The hospital advised that Yıldırım be taken by ambulance to the Metris Prison in Istanbul, where he could receive help.
In February, Yıldırım was issued with another report, this time by the Forensic Medicine Institution, that he could not remain in prison on grounds that he could not maintain a normal life on his own and needed support and help.
Yıldırım applied for a postponement of his sentence, but his request was rejected in March. The appeal process was completed in late April, and was rejected when the police testified that he could “join the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) if released”.
In May, prison guards in the prison dropped Yıldırım while transferring him to his wheelchair. The fall caused a misalignment in the pins in his spine, and Yıldırım was told he would need another operation. A suitable surgeon could not be found at the time, so the surgery was postponed.
Later in the month, Yıldırım’s lawyers appealed to the Constitutional Court. By late May 2019, in an interim ruling the Court said there was “no serious risk to Yıldırım’s life or bodily or spiritual integrity”.
A second appeal by the lawyers in November 2019 was rejected in February 2020.
Last month the Justice Ministry’s Chamber of Human Rights issued a report insisting Yıldırım could remain in prison looking after himself, despite the medical report to the contrary.
Yıldırım’s lawyers shared with the Court a report by a specialist hospital that the spinal operation could not now be undertaken because of the high risk to Yıldırım’s life. Based on the report, the lawyers argued that Yıldırım’s continued incarceration constituted a violation on the ban on torture and mistreatment.
The lawyers filed a petition detailing Yıldırım’s current situation, describing how the pins in his spine had began to push against his back, leading to sores and difficulty in breathing. Yıldırım is held in the same cell as another disabled inmate, Ergin Aktaş who had both his hands amputated. Lawyers detailed in the petition that the conditions Yıldırım and Aktaş were being held in constituted inhumane and degrading treatment.
The latest appeal was filed on Monday, with the lawyers also objecting to the prison authorities not accommodating the dietary needs for Yıldırım. Due to malnourishment, Yıldırım is starting to lose cognitive capacity, they said, adding that by not providing special diet designed for his specific medical needs would be considered an attack on Yıldırım’s bodily integrity and his life.
