Eren Keskin, co-chair of the Human Rights Association (İHD), has announced that doctors have confirmed the brain death of sick inmate Ergün Akdoğan, who underwent surgery earlier in May, and that the family was not allowed to see his body in the hospital, the Artı Gerçek news website reported on Wednesday.
“The family’s only wish is to see him, but they’re not allowed to,” Keskin wrote on social media, addressing the Ministry of Justice. “What kind of cruelty is this?”
Akdoğan was hospitalized after he was found unconscious by other inmates in the ward. On May 14 he underwent major surgery that lasted seven hours.
Doctors informed the family of the brain death yesterday, the report said.
Keskin said the family’s request to see his body was prevented by a gendarmerie officer.
She also revealed that the family was contacted for their consent for organ donation.
It is common for Turkish authorities to impose undue restrictions on visitation rights, particularly against families of those imprisoned on political grounds.
In many cases, prison authorities have refused to inform families of the situation of inmates who are sick, those who are hospitalized for treatment. This lack of communication was especially systematic during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many reports about outbreaks in Turkey’s notoriously overcrowded prisons were ignored by the authorities.
In other cases, prison authorities have prevented inmates from attending funerals of family members, citing security reasons.
Turkey remains the leader in the number of prisoners in Europe, according to the 2022 Council of Europe (CoE) Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations report. In January 2022 Turkey accounted for over a third of all prisoners in CoE member states, having experienced a surge of 369 percent in its prison population between 2005 and 2022.
