Sick Prisoner Yıldızbakan Loses His Life

Click to read the article in Turkish/Kurdish

Sick prisoner Mehmet Yıldzbakan lost his life yesterday morning (March 27) in Samandağ district prison in Hatay Province.

The Human Rights Association (İHD) Commission for Prisons in its statement stated that Yıldızbakan (65) was a cardiac and had chronic disorders due to being kept in high security prison for a long time.

According to İHD stats, there are 905 sick prisoners 323 of whom are seriously ill in Turkey. Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ had declared 2,300 people lost their lives in prison from 2009 to October 2016.

The whole family is in prison

The İHD in its statement also noted that they had several times demanded release of Yıldızbakan:

“He started to go blind due to diabetes and he was seen in the risky group because he had embolism in four veins of his heart.

“Even though execution of his sentence ended, he was not released because of the arbitrary circular letters issued by the Ministry of Justice.

“Mehmet Yıldızbakan’s two children and spouse are in high security prison as well.

“We will remember what Yıldızbakan said to us on February 2, 2017 when we visited him: ‘My spouse, children, daughter-in-law, we are all in prison. This is not justice but injustice”.

Yıldızbakan’s body has been taken to Hatay’s Dörtyol district to be interred. (AS/TK)