According to the report of Human Rights Association (IHD) Central Office Prisons Commission, 267 political prisoners need to be treated outside for being in poor health. Among these unreleased prisoners 36 have a cancer, 17 a heart disease and six have a shrapnel fragments in their bodies.
Speaking to ANF, IHD Central Executive Board Member and President of the Prisons Commission, Necla Þengül, remarked that the Forensic Medicine Institution is the biggest obstacle before sick prisoners.
While the report indicates that these 267 political prisoners must urgently be released, it is warned that among them eight may die at any time unless released. One of the sick prisoners is Hediye Aksoy who lost her two eyes because of shrapnel fragments hitting her during a mine explosion. Aksoy with a kidney problem can neither go up and down the stairs nor keep living in prison due to visual impairment. She meets her needs with the help of her prisoner friends. Aksoy isn’t treated regularly and is reported to have unbearable pains because of the cyst on her breast.
One other sick prisoner is Mehmet Aras with an advanced cancer who is only one of the prisoners waiting to die behind bars.
President of the Prisons Commission, Necla Þengül underlined that the obstacle of the Forensic Medicine Institution is a political manner, expressing that experts for example openly left cancer patient prisoner A.Samet Çelik for dead by not taking any notice of the Ankara Numune Hospital’s report pointing to ‘urgent treatment outside’. Þengül evaluated the institute’s manner as follows;
“Competent authorities make us confront the obstacle of Forensic Medicine whose decision is compulsory for the release of these sick prisoners. The Forensic Medicine Institution is responsible for many prisoners who died in prisons.”
Mentioning the problems in prisons, Þengül expressed that the applications made to IHD create a concern that torture and ill-treatment will increase in the coming periods. Þengül noted that the IHD will deal with these issues more closely in the coming days and not leave sick prisoners alone by organizing two great activities in Istanbul and Diyarbakir with the support of intellectuals, academicians and artists in the coming period to call attention to their situation
