Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu has urged Turkish authorities to release an inmate suffering from end-stage pancreatic cancer, allowing him to receive urgent medical treatment, the Tr724 news website reported.
In a recent social media post Gergerlioğlu revealed that former history teacher Ramazan Aktaş is critically ill in a prison in Isparta province, where his treatment has been delayed, leaving him to endure excruciating pain.
“The poor man is suffering terribly from his condition, and I am asking the Ministry of Justice why he is still not released from prison,” he said.
Aktaş was dismissed from his job through a government decree following a July 15, 2016 coup attempt. He was accused of having ties to the faith-based Gülen movement and subsequently sentenced to prison. However, the specific charges against Aktaş and the details of his sentence have not been made public.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began targeting its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following the abortive putsch in 2016, which he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Following the failed coup, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as more than 24,000 members of the armed forces, were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
In his social media post Gergerlioğlu did not mention whether Aktaş had already appealed to be released from prison but did say that the ailing man had been “neglected in prison” by authorities.
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 danger to society may be suspended until they recover. However, the stipulated suspension of sentence is often not implemented.
Turkish authorities have frequently been criticized for their systematic disregard of the health needs of prisoners. Every year rights groups report the deaths of dozens of sick prisoners, either while behind bars or shortly after their release, which often comes at the end-stage of their illness. 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.
