On May 29 2017, we pub­lished a call to sol­i­dar­i­ty reveal­ing the sit­u­a­tion of Devrim Ayık, a young pris­on­er suf­fer­ing from a chron­ic and severe case of “Crohn’s disease.”


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Devrim was then incar­cer­at­ed in Izmir prison. His incar­cer­a­tion was main­tained despite the med­ical reports. In June he was sub­ject­ed to a forced depor­ta­tion to the prison in Antalya, 460 km away from his fam­i­ly. In the dif­fi­cult con­di­tions of the pen­i­ten­tiary, his health rapid­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed. A peti­tion had gath­ered numer­ous sig­na­tures, his case was defend­ed by human rights asso­ci­a­tions and, thanks to the sol­i­dar­i­ty and the con­sid­er­able efforts of his fam­i­ly, close ones and asso­ci­a­tions he was trans­ferred to an assig­na­tion to res­i­dence. But not with­out difficulty!

At the hear­ing on May 5 2018, the tri­bunal had ruled that Devrim Ayık could leave the prison and be assigned to res­i­dence. But, before he had even left the prison in Antalya, at the door of the estab­lish­ment, he was placed in cus­tody for anoth­er inquest into his “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized demon­stra­tion” and “pro­pa­gan­da for an ille­gal orga­ni­za­tion.” He had not shown up for his statement…and with good rea­son, since he was detained… Fol­low­ing his inter­ro­ga­tion and a hear­ing by the judge, Devrim was final­ly assigned to residence.

But on Octo­ber 7 2019, Devrim Ayık was arrest­ed once again as he was leav­ing the gas­tro-enterol­o­gy ser­vice of the hos­pi­tal in Antalya’s Akd­eniz Uni­ver­si­ty, where he had gone for exams. Fol­low­ing 4 more days of cus­tody, he was sent back to Antalya prison, the same one he had left 4 months ear­li­er for his assig­na­tion to residence.

Devrim AyıkCrohn’s dis­ease from which Devrim suf­fers since 2012 is a rel­a­tive­ly rare inflam­ma­tion of the diges­tive sys­tem for which there exists no known defin­i­tive treat­ment. How­ev­er, the patien­t’s life can be rel­a­tive­ly improved with the right fol­low-up and treat­ment. Devrim has already been oper­at­ed on twice and has already had close to one meter of intestines removed. As for appro­pri­ate med­ical fol­low-up and treat­ment, this is impos­si­ble under prison con­di­tions. Most of all, Devrim does not have access to the spe­cif­ic foods pre­scribed by the med­ical dieti­cian. The great­est risk in Crohn’s dis­ease is an evo­lu­tion toward col­orec­tal cancer.

His moth­er has sent us a let­ter in which she explains Devrim’s state of ill health and calls for help through inter­na­tion­al solidarity.

My son being in jail, he is not being treat­ed. The fact he can­not feed him­self as pre­scribed by the dieti­cian means he can­not be treat­ed as need­ed and under the unhealthy and insuf­fi­cient con­di­tions in jail, Devrim’s con­di­tion wors­ens day after day. As sole treat­ment to delay the trans­for­ma­tion of the ill­ness into can­cer, he receives two injec­tions of Humi­ra per week.

On Jan­u­ary 17 2020, we learned that Devrim suf­fered a malaise. He was trans­ferred to emer­gen­cies at the insis­tence of his co-detainees. But fol­low­ing a sin­gle inter­ven­tion, he was returned to his quar­ters in prison.

For a long time already, my son has been unable to leave his bed. He needs help from his friends to attend to all his hygien­ic needs. On his last vis­it with his lawyers on Jan­u­ary 19 Jan­u­ary, he was brought in a wheel­chair by the guards.

His present con­di­tion is of grave con­cern. For the past two weeks, he has suf­fered from nose­bleeds and has coughed up blood. Since he does not receive the prop­er food and is not treat­ed, he expe­ri­ences bleed­ing, irri­ta­tions and oede­ma fol­low­ing bow­el move­ments. He suf­fers from throat inflam­ma­tions and a heavy cough. He has start­ed expe­ri­enc­ing heart prob­lems. His ane­mia is so pro­nounced that his hands and face are col­or­less. Nor­mal­ly, he should receive blood trans­fu­sions, but the prison direc­torate has for­bid­den them. He is start­ing to expe­ri­ence intense intesti­nal pains. More­over he is expe­ri­enc­ing a hear­ing loss. As for his eye­sight, he has total­ly lost vision in his right eye, and with a myopia of ‑30 , he needs cor­rec­tive glass­es in order to see to a dis­tance of 1 meter. The med­ical com­mis­sion has declared Devrim 76% handicapped.

Despite all this, Devrim has received no respons­es to the requests he has sent to the prop­er author­i­ties, be it the Min­istry of Jus­tice or the office of the prison pros­e­cu­tor or oth­er institutions.

My son Devrim Ayık’s sit­u­a­tion has reached a crit­i­cal stage imper­il­ing his sur­vival. I appeal to every insti­tu­tion, civil­ian orga­ni­za­tion, the Turk­ish Union of Med­ical Doc­tors, to be sen­si­tive to his case.

There must not be yet anoth­er dead body removed from prison. Pre­vent­ing this is a human duty. I call upon all of human­i­ty that we may say togeth­er “free­dom for the sick pris­on­ers, free­dom for Devrim Ayık.”

We invite you to share this appeal on your net­works. The first appeal had led to an arrange­ment because the case of Devrim Ayık, a sym­bol of many oth­ers in Turk­ish pris­ons, had been wide­ly cov­ered out­side prison walls.

Do not hes­i­tate in sign­ing, shar­ing, dis­trib­ut­ing this peti­tion, in Turk­ish no doubt, but which repro­duces the words of the appeal made by Devrim’s mother.

March 18, 2020

Devrim Ayık is released, under house and judi­cial supervision. 
A Case law deci­sion for sick pris­on­ers in Turkey. 


Image à la une : Pho­to ©Emre M. (Harem Üskü­dar — Istanbul)

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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