Co-chairman of the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Mehmet Candemir, aged 60 in Batman, and Ibrahim Yildirim, aged 68, have died of illness in Turkey’s prisons, according to North Kurdistan media.
Despite health problems, 1,517 sick inmates remain in prison due to medical reports that state their conditions to be fit to serve in prison. In the first eight months of this year, 43 political inmates have passed away in Turkish prisons due to various diseases.
Cases of human rights violations in Turkey in March included 148 deaths and 281 incidents of torture or maltreatment, with 51 of them taking place in prisons, where five inmates also died, according to the monthly Rights Violations Report prepared by human rights defender and opposition deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Turkish media reported.
“Turkey’s prisons continue to be centres of ill-treatment and torture. According to the statement made by the Turkish Human Rights Association (İHD) on 29 April 2022, as of April 2022, there are 1517 ill prisoners, 651 of whom are seriously ill,” People’s Democratic Party official website reported.
After the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the Turkish government has imprisoned thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians on various charges.