We demand Right to Life for Terminally Ill Prisoners

It has been 10 years since Human Rights Association started to be the voice of ill prisoners in 2008.

For the past ten years, the efforts we made, unfortunately, have not been approached positively by the authorities. Hundreds of ill prisoners lost their lives and they even could not spentd the last a few days with their families.

We would like to share the story of a prisoner who is terminally ill, in order not to experience the same sad ending.

Koçer Özdal, 60, arrested in Muş Province in 2014 and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment, was put in solitary confinement in 2016. Before being arrested, he did not have any health problems. In the fourth year of his imprisonment in Bafra T-type Penal Institution, he was taken to hospital after severe headache, where he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. During the same period, he developed high blood pressure and lost his kidneys. Then he started to go into dialysis.

Koçer Özdal, who cannot read or write, as told by his friends in the prison, cannot maintain his life by his own, and his medicine is not being given in time, which causes delays in the treatment. Furthermore, his son Savcı Özdal, serving his life imprisonment in Kayseri Province T-type Penal Institution no:2, is not allowed to be transferred to his father’s place or vice versa.

The violations he faced so far have been in the media many times.  He was referred to hospital of Samsun 19 Mayıs University by Samsun Research Hospital, but could not have an operation on grounds that the ‘prisoner’s room’ was being restored. Then the university hospital sent him to Ankara Gazi University Medicine Faculty Hospital, but for the same reason he was not operated.

Because of various inconveniences, his state became worse and now he has been in the “prisoner’s room” of Ankara Research Hospital. His family who travelled to Ankara for visit could not see him because the prosecutor issued the visit permit to later days. The family who talked to the doctors learned that his bladder would be taken out because of cancer, and they were expecting scan results and reports. The family were said that if the results were too bad his kidneys might also be taken out.

This is what we were informed during the application we received about Koçer Özdal’s state of health.

We, as human rights defenders, do not want to witness new deaths in prisons. For 10 years, we have been addressing people’s conscience and emphasised the indispensability of right to life. We stated that, according to the Istanbul Protocol, adopted by UN and ratified by State Parties, whether arrested or convicted “each prisoner has the right to choose their doctors and ask their reports to be prepared by independent experts”. We have pointed out that especially terminally ill prisoners should be able to get treatment along with their families and bid farewell.

For Koçer Özdal, we restate,

We do not ask for mercy, conscience or favour, we want right to life for 401 terminally ill prisoners.

Freedom for Koçer Özdal!

HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION (HRA) DIYARBAKIR BRANCH