'The minister gave instructions, there will be intervention'

Aytaç Ünsal and his wife

Click to read the article in Turkish

"I was kidnapped to the hospital by being dragged on the ground and frogmarched. Now I'm at the emergency service, on a stretcher. White lights above me, serum with a needle on my right... Mustafa comes to my head, Koçak Mustafa... He endured all the tortures like a mountain goat. They will get the same answer from us as well."

This is how death fasting arrested lawyer Aytaç Ünsal starts to tell how he was hospitalized and the conditions at the hospital. He sent a letter to bianet from Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital, where he is currently held.

"Don't you trust the state?"

Here is the letter that he concludes with saying, "I love you all":

"While I am thinking about these, shouts come from outside. I can't see it, but I hear very clearly. Because they are very close, I recognize it right away. This is my mother's voice. "No, no!" she says. Then I started listening in more detail.

"The male voice in front of her says, 'There is an instruction from our Minister of Interior, there will be an intervention.' My mother replies, 'I never accept that. I won't allow you to torture my son'."

"The person, who I understand is a police officer, asks, 'Don't you trust the state?' He gets the answer, 'I don't trust after all these things I got through. I trust neither the police nor the soldiers nor the courts'."

"You will respect his will. If it's death, it's death"

"And my mother says all in one breath: '[He is] my only son. I didn't find him on the street. You won't forcibly intervene. You will respect his will. If it's death, it's death. I won't allow anything other than his will.' She becomes hot-headed, excited. The 'little men' who are crowded against her are getting smaller."

"They thought they would spend the holiday with me"

"The argument continues, also, they want to see me. They get a cold 'no' answer. While the conversation was going on, a scream resounds as if the thunder roars: 'Damn, damn all of you!' This is my father and he is very angry as well.

"Naturally, they had thought after the Forensic Medicine Institution's "They can't stay in prison" report that I would be released. They dreamed, they thought they would spend the holiday with me. Their dreams were dashed. They made the holiday unbearable for them.

"This is why they are so angry. They are clashing for their baby in front of the door. Both of them are my heroes. They show that they love their children, they lay claim to their honor. They fight unconditionally. This love is not only in words, it defends its children against the Security Director."

"They panic"

"While the argument is continuing, they move my stretcher, I am being kidnapped from my mother and father at jet speed. I call out to them: 'I love you, don't worry about me. The stretcher speeds up as I shout. They are so cowardly that they panic, the stretcher hits here and there.

"Finally, we have arrived. An iron door opens again. And they put me in a room with white walls and just a bed.

"It is surrounded by walls on three sides. There are only two small rectangular windows at the corner, facing the interior corridor. Gendarmes are watching me through these windows. Ten gendarmes are waiting in front of my door in the corridor. They look through the window. The one who speaks on the phone gives information to his superior: "He can stand up, sir, he doesn't look bad." Their eyes see someone who weighs five kilos. These little guys are wrong, I'm fine, I'm full of determination..."

"The doctor said the won't be an intervention unless Aytaç wants it"

Attorney Nermin Ünsal, the mother of Aytaç Ünsal, told bianet that the hospital her son is being held is designated as a "pandemic hospital."

"Two security officers took him out of the ambulance like a potato sack. Then they threw him on the stretcher," she said.

"I went to the emergency service after them. There were about 30 gendarmerie personnel inside. A police officer who I think was a senior came and said, 'We have an instruction from the Interior Minister, we will intervene'. The doctor who came after him said, 'Your son does not want intervention, that wouldn't happen unless he wants it'.

"He was held on the stretcher for two hours in the emergency service. They did not let us in, but in the meantime, dozens of patients and their relatives went in and out. Then they pulled us back and took Aytaç on a stretcher to the service."

"The hospital's conditions are worse than the prison"

Aytaç Ünsal is being held in the "convicts' room" in the hospital. Nermin Ünsal said the conditions in this room were worse than the prison:

"The windows are fixed, there is no air intake. Ten gendarmes and wardens wait in front of the door. The last time I saw Aytaç in prison, his face was alive and his eyes were shining. Today, in the hospital, his eyes are faint, his face is yellow.

"He is held in confinement. He had ventilation at the prison. There is no such thing here. The white lights in the room never went out at night, he couldn't sleep for four nights, until [we] resolved this. At night, gendarmes and the warden enter his room constantly. I got the lights turned off after fighting for it.

"His immune system is rapidly collapsing. They will kill him by corona if not by starvation.

"I call out to the public, opposition parties, artists, intellectuals, lawyers. As these two lawyers die for justice, I want them to hear their voices, to protect them and to stop the lawlessness."

(AS/VK)