A 70-year-old inmate in Turkey is in critical condition after collapsing during a heatwave in an overcrowded prison, raising renewed concerns over the country’s treatment of elderly and ill detainees, the TR724 news website reported.
According to opposition lawmaker and human rights advocate Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu from the People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), Hüseyin Parlak, serving a sentence for alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement, fainted on August 6 in Manisa’s Alaşehir Prison, where temperatures reached 43°C (109°F). He reportedly struck his head, suffered a brain hemorrhage and has been in intensive care for five days.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan and 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 the abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Gergerlioğlu accused authorities of “deliberate neglect,” tagging the justice ministry in a post on X and questioning why seriously ill and elderly inmates remain incarcerated.
Turkey’s prisons, holding more than 420,000 inmates, well above the official capacity of 299,042 —face mounting criticism from rights groups. The World Prison Brief and the Council of Europe have repeatedly flagged overcrowding, poor ventilation and inadequate medical care as systemic issues.
International human rights law, including the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, requires that states provide adequate healthcare to prisoners and take special measures for vulnerable detainees. Advocates say cases like Parlak’s underscore the life-threatening consequences of failing to meet these obligations.
Turkish authorities have frequently been criticized for their systematic disregard of the health needs of prisoners. 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.
