Solitary confinement with tuberculosis and no treatment

As the hunger strike launched by Kurdish political prisoners on 27th Nov 2020 rolls on to its 90th day in Turkey’s prisons, every day news arrives from inside the prisons revealing the appalingly inhumane conditions.

According to the Human Rights Association (IHD), there are at least 1,564 sick prisoners in Turkey most of whom have to endure such inhumane conditions in prisons that are devoid of basic levels of medical treatment.

The prisoners have been trying to raise their voices to bring attention to the inhumane conditions in Turkey’s prisons and to raise the demand that the isolation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan be lifted.

23-year-old Tenzile Acar suffers from tuberculosis, Tenzile Acar’s situation has worsened during the last 5 years that she has been imprisoned in Istanbul’s Bakırköy Women’s Closed Prison. Her aunt Nebiha Akay shares her worries with Mesopotamia Agency regarding her neice’s health condition.

‘She has been kept in isolation for a month’

“When she was arrested in 2017 she was healthy, but as the years passed she has lost her health in prison,” said Nebiha Akay. “Tenzile now has bleeding in her throat due to tuberculosis, she is just 23 years old and is not able to feed herself alone, yet she is kept under strict isolation in a solitary confinement cell.”

Tenzile requested treatment in a hospital “The prison authorities were going to take her to the hospital in handcuffs and be examined in front of Turkish soldiers.” her aunt said, “So she protested against this mistreatment and refused to go to the hospital.”

Nebiha Akay has been trying to raise the voice of her jailed niece. “We call on President Erdoğan and human rights organisations to take urgent action for such sick prisoners. Either release them or treat them humanely. Just to stand on her feet is now a challenge for Tenzile due to her worsening health condition. She needs to be released immediately,” she said. “There are hundreds of prisoners like her, We do not want to hear about any more deaths from prisons.”