In a parliamentary speech on Wednesday, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) lawmaker Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu criticized the poor conditions in Turkish prisons and the lack of adequate healthcare for sick inmates, the TR724 news website reported.
Addressing Enis Yavuz Yıldırım, the general director of prisons and detention centers, Gergerlioğlu said many critically ill prisoners, including those with cancer, faced delayed treatment due to long waiting times for visits to the hospital. In some cases, even diagnosing a disease took a significant amount of time, further impeding the patient’s recovery.
“There is a significant difference in life expectancy when cancer is diagnosed at stage one compared to stage three or four. That difference can come down to just a few months of delay,” he said.
Gergerlioğlu stated that some sick inmates had been unable to visit a hospital for over a year. One of the main reasons, he explained, was that prisoners often refused to go due to the strip-searches and cavity searches they were subjected to upon returning to prison. For many ill inmates, these procedures were physically exhausting and deeply humiliating.
In addition to problems experienced by sick inmates, Turkish prisons are overcrowded and lack proper hygiene. In İstanbul’s Bakırköy Prison, 50 people are sharing a 12-person cell, with some inmates sleeping on the floor. To make matters even worse, cells are infested with mice and insects.
“In some prisons, inmates hang their laundry in their cells because there isn’t any other way to dry it. Those cells barely get any sunlight, and it takes days for anything to dry, all while dozens of inmates are living in that cell. These conditions are inhumane,” said Gergerlioğlu. “Several inmates are currently on a hunger strike to protest these conditions; however, the authorities are not taking the issues seriously and aren’t taking any steps to improve them.”
He added that he had tried to take up these problems with Yıldırım on multiple occasions but that all his requests for a meeting were denied.
Turkish authorities have faced criticism from human rights advocates over the high number of critically ill inmates and the lack of adequate medical care in prisons.
In the latest case, Gülten Nene, an imprisoned mother of two, was diagnosed with breast cancer while in detention. However, nearly a year passed between her first symptoms and her diagnosis due to delayed and canceled hospital visits. She has appealed to authorities for release to access proper medical treatment and is awaiting a decision.
Every year, rights groups report the death 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.
