‘Right to life and health is for everyone’

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The Prison Commission of the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) İstanbul Branch has released a written statement about the failure to release ill prisoners and shared information about the health condition of its client Murat Güntürk in İstanbul Silivri Prison.

According to the information obtained by ÖHD lawyers during their visit to the Silivri No. 5 Closed Prison on October 1, Güntürk has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Güntürk has said that the tumor is at a progressing stage and the doctor told him that "it was too late for treatment, it should have been intervened much earlier." He is now awaiting surgery in prison conditions.

According to the Human Rights Association (İHD) data, there are at least 1,605 ill prisoners, 604 seriously, in Turkey's prisons.

Cancer patient Özdoğan arrested

The ÖHD has also recalled that the request of Ayşe Özdoğan, a 4th stage cancer patient, for the deferment of the execution of her prison sentence has been rejected and Özdoğan has been arrested. The ÖHD has reminded the public that jailed politician and lawyer Aysel Tuğluk is also still held behind bars in the Kandıra Prison despite her progressing disease.

The Association has underlined that despite its applications for deferment of execution and the forensic medical reports indicating that "they cannot stay in prison", several ill prisoners are still imprisoned. "Ergin Aktaş and Serdal Yıldırım, prisoners who are held in the Metris Type R Closed Prison, are the most concrete examples of this situation," the ÖHD has said.

'It is against the Constitution and ECHR'

The ÖHD İstanbul Branch Prison Commission has noted that keeping seriously ill political prisoners behind bars is against the principle of equality, right to life and right to access to healthcare as per the Articles 10, 17 and 56 of the Constitution while it also violates the right to life and access to healthcare as per the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The ÖHD has recalled that the deferment of the execution of a sentence due to a serious illness and disability as per the Article 16/6 of the Law on Execution no. 5275 has been bound to the condition of whether the prisoner's release "will pose a risk to the security of society or not."

"And this condition is sought and applied only in the prison sentences executed as per the Anti-Terror Law (TMK)," the ÖHD has said and added, "In that case, the political prisoners who are imprisoned because of their thoughts and political opinions in Turkey keep being held in prisons despite their serious illnesses, including cancer and paralysis."

The ÖHD has protested that this condition "causes political prisoners to be condemned to a sort of 'silent capital punishment regime' in prisons."

"The right to life and health is for everyone with no 'but's," the Association has stated further, calling on the authorities "to stop applying an enemy law to ill prisoners who are still held behind bars due to their thoughts and political opinions, to apply equal citizenship criteria to them and to immediately defer the execution of their sentences." (AS/SD)