A 72-year-old man serving a prison sentence in Turkey for alleged links to the Gülen movement collapsed in his cell last week while seriously ill, prompting his family to warn that he could die behind bars, the TR724 news website reported.
Abdullah Tırpan fainted in his cell on November 3 and was taken to a hospital, where he was under observation, then was returned to a prison in Tekirdağ province.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights defender and an opposition deputy from the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) who raised the case in Turkey’s parliament, said Tırpan was taken to the hospital again this week after persistent breathing problems and continuous vomiting, and then returned to prison again. Tırpan can no longer walk to the toilet on his own.
Gergerlioğlu said Tırpan has been sent to the prison infirmary 40 times and fainted multiple times since he began serving his sentence in February after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld his seven-and-a-half-year sentence.
“He is seriously ill,” Gergerlioğlu said in parliament. “He is diabetic. He has non-healing wounds on his feet and recurrent lung infections. He is 72 years old. He keeps fainting in his cell. If he dies in prison tomorrow, who will be held responsible?” Gergerlioğlu added that the family fears for Tırpan’s life and called for his case to be reconsidered on medical grounds.
Tırpan’s relatives said medical staff at the hospital applied cardiac electrodes when he was brought in after the November 3 episode and that the family suspects he may have suffered a heart attack. They said prison authorities have not provided sufficient information about his condition.
His relatives have asked authorities to release him on health grounds, saying prison conditions are not suitable for someone with his chronic illnesses. Under Turkish law, inmates can be released if a report from Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) confirms they are unfit to remain in prison. The family said they are still waiting for such a report and fear he could die before it is issued.
The ATK frequently comes under criticism over its questionable reports that find ailing inmates fit to remain in prison. Rights advocates slam the agency over its lack of independence from political influence and its role in compounding the persecution of political prisoners
Tırpan was first detained on August 16, 2016, during a crackdown that followed a failed coup a month earlier. He spent about 19 months in pretrial detention before the Tekirdağ 3rd High Criminal Court sentenced him to seven years, six months in prison.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding.
The court convicted Tırpan on charges based on his deposits in Bank Asya, his subscriptions to movement-affiliated magazines and newspapers, sending his children to schools later closed for alleged Gülen links, making donations to related charities and membership in a foundation associated with the movement.
Since the coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government has accepted such activities as having an account at the now-shuttered Bank Asya, one of Turkey’s largest commercial banks at the time; using the ByLock messaging application, an encrypted messaging app that was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play; and subscribing to the now-shut-down Zaman daily or other publications affiliated with members of the movement as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
In a 2018 statement to the court Tırpan denied involvement in illegal activity and said he ran a family business with multiple retail locations and an industrial kitchen. “I have no criminal record,” he told the court, adding that his accounts and donations were personal and not part of any organizational activity.
Tırpan’s health crisis comes as rights groups highlight the death of other ailing prisoners with alleged Gülen ties. In August and September, at least three men — Hüseyin Parlak, 70, who died of a brain hemorrhage during a heatwave; İbrahim Güngör, 72, an Alzheimer’s patient who succumbed to pneumonia; and Asaleddin Çelik, 52, who died of lung cancer shortly after a delayed release — all passed away in custody or shortly afterward.
According to Law No. 5275, the sentence of a prisoner who, due to a serious illness or disability, is unable to manage life on their own under prison conditions and who is not considered a serious or concrete danger to society, may be suspended until they recover. However, the stipulated suspension of sentence is often not implemented.
The Human Rights Association (İHD) says more than 1,400 sick prisoners are currently held in Turkey, including hundreds in critical condition. Complaints include delays in transferring inmates to hospitals, inadequate treatment in prison clinics and forensic reports that allow seriously ill detainees to remain incarcerated.
Turkey recorded 709 deaths in prison in the first 11 months of 2024, according to data from the ministry of justice shared in response to a parliamentary inquiry.
