Turkish authorities have for the third time denied the release of an ailing inmate despite his eligibility for parole, the Yeni Yaşam news website reported on Thursday.
Soydan Akay, a 50-year-old inmate who suffers from prostate cancer, Hepatitis B and rheumatoid arthritis, first applied for conditional release after he became eligible for parole on August 11, 2023.
However, the prison’s Administration and Observation Board denied his application, saying he was the leader of inmates convicted of terrorism related to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The board said Akay continued to communicate with other imprisoned PKK members, raising concerns that he could incite protests or strikes, thus endangering the safety of the prison and other facilities.
His brother Veysel disputed this claim. “He has been held in a single cell for six years, and all of his meetings are recorded,” he said. “How can he be the ‘Person in Charge of Turkish Prisons’?”
Akay was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 on charges of attempting “to separate part of the territory under the sovereignty of the State from the State administration.”
Since the 1980s the PKK has been leading an insurgency that has claimed the lives of some 40,000 people in Turkey. The group is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
Administrative observation boards, review bodies established in Turkish prisons in January 2021, have been criticized for delaying the parole of political prisoners.
Turkish authorities have also been frequently criticized for their systematic disregard of the health problems of political prisoners.
Every year rights groups report the death of dozens of sick prisoners, either while behind bars or shortly after their belated release, which often comes at the end-stage of their illnesses.
According to the Human Rights Association (İHD), there were 1,517 sick inmates in Turkish detention facilities as of December 2022, 651 of whom were critically ill.
