Prison authorities at Marmara Prison in Istanbul failed to provide urgent medical treatment to a seriously ill inmate who suffered a heart attack in late March, according to the inmate’s family and lawyer, the Artı Gerçek news website reported.
Soydan Akay’s complaints were dismissed as merely high blood pressure, and he was returned to his cell although he had a medical history of cardiac problems. In March alone, he was taken to the hospital seven times, with three of those visits registered as emergencies.
Akay’s family later consulted independent doctors using hospital records obtained via Turkey’s digital health system. The doctors reportedly confirmed that Akay had, in fact, suffered a heart attack on March 26.
“This is hostile treatment,” his lawyer, Esra Bilen said. “Even after suffering a heart attack last week, they told him it was just high blood pressure and sent him back.”
Akay, diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018, also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis B and heart issues. He became eligible for parole on August 11, 2023. Despite his deteriorating condition, prison authorities have repeatedly denied his release. His parole was blocked for a fourth time on February 10 by the prison’s Administrative Observation Board.
Administrative observation boards, review bodies established in Turkish prisons in January 2021, have been criticized for delaying the parole of political prisoners.
A 2021 regulation allowing prison review boards to delay release for prisoners deemed not “well-behaved” has come under criticism from rights groups. As of October 2024, the Justice Ministry said the release of 8,521 inmates had been postponed on such grounds.
Akay was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 on conviction of separatism as well as membership in Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Since the 1980s the PKK has been leading an insurgency that has claimed the lives of some 40,000 people in Turkey.
Poor health coupled with unsanitary and unacceptable prison conditions have resulted in the death of many sick inmates. Since 2002 more than 5,300 inmate deaths have been reported, including 709 in the first 11 months of 2024 alone.
Human rights advocates warn that the growing number of deaths in custody, particularly among ailing prisoners, underscores the urgent need for systemic reform and independent oversight within Turkey’s prison system.
