Aslı Erdoğan has had to endure solitary confinement, sleeping on a urinated bed, and lack of water and medicines. Just one more in the growing list of abuses against writers and journalists in Recep Erdoğan's post attempted coup Turkey.
This statement was originally published on bianet.org on 25 August 2016.
Arrested Özgür Gündem daily Publishing Consultant Board member, novelist and columnist Aslı Erdoğan has not been given water or her medication in prison and was being held in a solitary confinement cell and not taken out to get fresh air.
Aslı Erdoğan, talking to Cumhuriyet daily through her attorney, noted that she had intestinal problems, her pancreas and digestive system did not function properly and added:
“I have not been given my medication for five days. […] The bed I have to sleep on has been urinated on. Although I am also an asthma and a Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patient, I have yet not been taken out to get fresh air. I am being treated in a way which could leave permanent damage ın my body. If I didn’t resist insistently, I couldn’t have borne these circumstances”.
Objected to her arrest
The attorneys Özcan Kılıç and Sercan Korkmaz have objected to Erdoğan’s arrest with an application they have lodged with İstanbul’s 4th Criminal Court of Peace.
Noting that Erdoğan’s arrest contradicted with the Constitution, The European Convention on Human Rights, Press Law, and principles required in the decisions of the Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights as well as the principles of proportionality, clarity and definiteness, the attorneys have pointed to the court decisions on Can Dündar and Erdem Gül as leading cases.
What happened?
İstanbul 8th Criminal Court of Peace shut down Özgür Gündem newspaper. The decision said that the newspaper will be “temporarily shut down” but did not mention how long it would remain closed.
Following the decision made by İstanbul’s 8th Criminal Court of Peace to shut down Özgür Gündem daily, police raided the newspaper’s building. Twenty-two people were taken into custody.
Police have also launched a raid into the apartment of Filiz Koçali and Eren Keskin as well as Sinan Zarakolu, the son of publisher, columnist and journalist Ragıp Zarakolu, who was registered at this address.
Aslı Erdoğan was arrested on August 19.
