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Testimonial

Türkiye: prison diseases

Serhat1 is incarcerated in a prison F, in Izmir (Türkiye). He wrote this letter on the 29th of December 2017. It is his seventh year of detention.

I WAS born in 1984. I was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to a heavy life sentence in 2010. Since then, I stay alone in my cell.
Due to the coldness in my cell, I have a chronic illness called Raynold syndrom. My veins in my feet and hands became thinner. In short, it is a prison disease. I have digestion problems. I need to take 3000mg antibiotics daily. My treatment continues and no one knows how much longer it will continue. My right knee is 5cm shorter than my other knee. And there is meniscus tear in my left knee that is very painful.

Since I live alone in my cell, I became unsocial. I don’t have many visitors. My mother and my sisters are coming to see me from time to time. We had moved from Bitlis to Aydın 45 years ago.

I hope I don’t make you upset. These are our facts. State has never been on our side, we were excluded and we feel as though we were buried alive here. But despite all the people who want us dead, we struggle to survive.

  1. His name has been changed. ↩

Our courtyard is covered with wire netting. It pours down rust when it rains.

"We are devastated psychologically"

Yes, I was young and ignorant, and I committed a crime. I will not do the same crime, I am sorry.
State is all our state. But closing us into boxes and expect us to get rehabilitated and become good people without letting us to participate any activities, courses or education. How is that possible? We all have to live under these circumstances.

We are devastated psychologically. We did not receive any support from the state. There are many people like me in prisons.

They do not let prisoners who were sentenced to heavy life sentence to participate in any education or courses for security reasons.

Our courtyard is covered with wire netting. It pours down rust when it rains. Our health and psychology is under pressure. We are only allowed to do sports for an hour once in open-air yard and once in closed yard weekly basis.

I make beadings and send them to my family. They sell them and send me some money. My brother is in Aydın’s E type prison. I applied to authorities around 150 times to be transferred over there, but it was denied.

Serhat, for Prison Insider

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