DİYARBAKIR - Mehmet Akpolat who has been transferred from one prison to another for the last 27 years is being held in solitary confinement for the last 19 years. Having had two heart attacks waiting in front of the prison gates, his 73 year old mother Hanife Akpolat wasn't able to visit her son for a year now.

 

Arrested back in July 18, 1995, Mehmet Akpolat (46) is behind bars for the last 27 years. Akpolat and Vahap Kavak, Ramazan Dağ and Zeynep Avcı who were accused of septaratism in İstanbul State Security Court (DGM), was sentenced to death after a 8 year long trial, which was later turned into a life sentence. When the Supreme Court finalized the sentence, attorneys of Akpolat brought the case before the European Court of Human's Rights but the court rejected the file.

 

Akpolat was put in a solitary cell in Siirt E Type Prison. Akpolat, who has been sent to Bayrampaşa, Ümraniye, Ermenek, Siirt, Diyarbakır, Muş, Rize and Bolu prisons, has been held in a solitary cell for 19 years now.

 

Mother of Akpolat, Hanife Akpolat (73) has been going to visits in all the prison her son was taken to for the last 27 years. Akpolat who was kept in the dark about the arrest of her son for 3 months, fainted at the DGM Court corridors when she learned that her son was sentenced to death and opened her eyes at the hospital. Learning that her son was tortured for a month and his testicals were ruptured during torture, which he had many operations for 8 years later, Akpolat says her son suffers from heart disease, kidney, stomach diseases, rheumatism and asthma. 

 

Emphasizing that his son's health problems caused by the torture he was subjected to, Akpolat said, “When Mehmet was first arrested, he was tortured for one and a half months. How can a person stay healthy if he is tortured for a month and a half? They electrocuted my son during the torture. Mehmet has now turned into an old man."

 

SHE HAD A HEART ATTACK TWICE

 

Stating that her son Akpolat was held in Muş, Rize and now Bolu F Type Closed Prison after Diyarbakır Prison, Hanife Akpolat said that she had had a heart attack twice before at the prison gates. Akpolat said, Going to the prison is a problem by itself. We had to sell all of our stops, we borrowed money, got into debt, gave the money to lawyers and Mehmet, spend it on the way to prison.I can't go to the prison on my own. They are torturing the families along with the prisoners. I haven't seen my son for the last 1 and a half years because of the pandemic."

 

'GENERAL AMNESTY TO POLITICAL PRISONERS

 

Emphasizing that Akpolat has been kept in a solitary confinement for 19 years, and that their only desire is a general amnesty for political prisoners, Akpolat said, “We want to see our children out of the prison before they die. We have only one request. And that is doors of the prison opened."