Erdogan Visit Highlights Poor Health Care in Turkish Prisons

When the Turkish judiciary finally released Ergin Saygun on health grounds this month, he was already on the operating table with a life-threatening heart infection. Several months earlier, the retired general had shouted at the judge, “You won’t manage to kill me!” as the court rejected repeated requests for his conditional release, ignoring medical reports that diagnosed him with 15 serious conditions and warned against the risk of a lethal cardiac infection.

The dramatic case of the former deputy chief of the Turkish general staff, convicted in a plot to overthrow the Islamist-rooted government, has raised questions about whether denial of proper health care has become a form of additional punishment — and even political revenge — in Turkey’s notorious judicial system.

Attention has focused on ailing inmates in the two mass coup attempt trials, which have deeply polarized Turkey and resulted in the imprisonment of scores of prominent figures. Human rights activists say many others — both political and ordinary prisoners — are languishing in jail without proper medical care, unbeknownst to the general public.

Despite his half-functioning heart and lung, Saygun was kept in jail and then in hospital prisoner ward, guarded by armed soldiers — even as doctors warned that such environments would expose his artificial heart valve to fatal virus attacks. When the infection did happen and Saygun was rushed into emergency surgery, the authorities must have reasoned that “the man is dying, so they’d better get rid of him,” as his daughter Ece Saygun said about the judicial ruling. In 2008, another coup suspect — little-known businessman Kuddusi Okkir — perished from lung cancer under the watch of prison authorities, before he was even formally indicted. In 2011, barrister Yusuf Erikel was granted belated release for cancer treatment only after he threw up blood in the courtroom.