A well known saying of the Prophet Mohammed intones, “Allah has no mercy for him who has no mercy for his fellows.” It seems to be misplaced on Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Improvement Social gathering authorities. The case of Ayse Ozdogan, an end-stage most cancers affected person, who’s serving a nine-year sentence over her hyperlinks to an anti-government spiritual sect, is among the many starkest examples. Turkey’s Human Rights Affiliation reckons there are over 1,600 significantly in poor health inmates in Turkey’s notoriously brutal and overpopulated jail system. About 600 are stated to be in vital situation. The federal government received’t free them.
Ozdogan is affected by a uncommon type of most cancers known as maxillary sinus. A portion of her face was eliminated in a fancy operation on Jan. 2, 2020. A gentle trickle of blood oozes from her nostril and palate. She will barely converse, in accordance with Ozdogan’s lawyer, Tarik Avsar. “Now Ayse Ozdogan is caught in a cell even an animal wouldn’t reside in, over nonsense prices,” Avsar instructed Al-Monitor.
“My sister needs to die in dignity. Her well being goes from dangerous to worse. She should be freed,” Ozdogan’s elder sister, Emine Erdem, instructed Al-Monitor. A authorities run hospital in Antalya drew the identical conclusion in a July 9 report seen by Al-Monitor. A panel of seven medical doctors unanimously agreed that the affected person’s life was below risk and that her sentence ought to subsequently be commuted to permit for therapy. However their verdict was overturned by the state-run Istanbul forensics institute, which opined that Ozdogan’s therapy might proceed in jail. Her appeals for mercy, aired through a heart-wrenching video, fell upon deaf ears. On Oct. 2 Ozdogan was carted off to the Antalya “T sort” jail the place her husband Ilker, is serving out his sentence on prices of membership of the “Fethullah Terrorist Group.”
The couple have an eight-year-old son who noticed his dad and mom arrested a number of instances. “We instructed him they took her for medical therapy,” stated Erdem. “He is aware of one thing’s not proper. He instructed his mom earlier than she was arrested once more, ‘l want to die as effectively so we are able to all be collectively in heaven.’ He can now not convey himself to say ‘mom’ or to ask when she is coming again. Every time the phrase mom involves his lips he begins to cry.”
Ozdogan and her husband have been each followers of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric who’s accused of staging the failed try in July 2016 to bloodily overthrow Erdogan. She supervised a ladies’ dormitory operated by the Gulenists. He was a bureaucrat within the nationwide schooling ministry. Each have been fired after the botched putsch and ultimately prosecuted, just like the tens of 1000’s of fellow Gulenists who’re behind bars.
Rights teams have documented systematic torture of Gulenist detainees, together with at purpose-built black websites. However there’s little public sympathy for them. Gulen was once a detailed ally of Erdogan till they fell out over who ought to have extra energy — and spoils.
Gulen used the alliance to wage a vendetta in opposition to their frequent enemies within the military, by a collection of trials that have been presided over by his disciples within the judiciary. A whole bunch of officers have been convicted on sham proof. “Even as we speak, the Gulenists are resorting to deception, and the bigwigs within the group who fled to security overseas have but to point out any contrition for what they did, inflicting additional hurt to the foot troopers who acquired left behind in Turkey,” stated Ayse Cavdar, a Turkish anthropologist who carefully follows spiritual actions in her native nation.
Nonetheless, Ozdogan’s tragedy has stirred hearts throughout the ideological spectrum. A lawmaker from the stridently pro-secular predominant opposition Republican Individuals’s Social gathering, Gulizar Bicer Karaca, sought to go to her in jail however was denied entry by jail directors citing COVID-19 dangers. Basak Demirtas, the spouse of the imprisoned Kurdish chief, Selahattin Demirtas, aired assist for Ozdogan through Twitter whereas the left-leaning satirical weekly Leman, put her on its cowl web page.
% 72 engelli, 4. evre kanser hastası #ayşeözdoğan tutuklandı. Cezaevinden tekrar hastaneye kaldırılan Özdoğan’ın durumunun kötü olduğu, banyo vb. en temel ihtiyaçlarını karşılayamadığı söyleniyor. pic.twitter.com/tUIa7cYMJH
— LeMan (@lemandergisi) October 7, 2021
“You might have a power drawback of very, very sick folks for whom the prognosis could be very poor. They will’t take care of themselves in jail. There are humanitarian grounds for suspending the execution of their sentences,” stated Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch.
Sinclair-Webb recalled the plight of Mehmet Emin Ozkan, an 83-year-old Kurd, who was sentenced to life on prices of murdering a Turkish normal in a case that was marred by flawed if not outright fabricated proof. He’s spent the previous 26 years in jail for a criminal offense that was dedicated by Turkey’s shadowy counter-insurgency forces, in accordance with a pair of secret witnesses who gave proof in a separate trial. Ozkan’s calls for for a retrial have been granted. However he was not let out.
Ozkan has had 5 coronary heart assaults over the course of his incarceration and suffers from quite a few well being circumstances. He’s unable to eat, drink or costume himself unaided. Pictures of Ozkan mendacity handcuffed to a hospital mattress earlier this 12 months induced uproar. Turkey’s Justice minister, Abdulhamit Gul, has ignored repeated requires Ozkan’s launch. “It’s apparent he’s not going to abscond or flee. That is an space the place the authorities are at their most vindictive,” Sinclair-Webb noticed.
Avsar, Ozdogan’s lawyer, will enchantment her sentence on the constitutional court docket on the grounds that her proper to life has been violated. Ought to the court docket rule in opposition to Ozdogan, in a replay of different high-profile political circumstances, Avsar says he’ll take the case to the European Court docket of Human Rights.
The Strasbourg-based physique dominated in 2013 that Turkey had violated Article 3 of the European Conference on Human Rights prohibiting inhuman and degrading therapy of people for remanding Gulay Cetin, an auditor identified with metastatic gastric most cancers in custody. Cetin, who was accused of murdering her accomplice, died within the jail ward at Antalya hospital in 2011.
Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a outstanding human rights defender and lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish Individuals’s Democratic Social gathering, who has taken up Ozdogan’s trigger famous that sick prisoners are launched solely once they have “reached the purpose of no return.”
