Abdülkadir Tatlı, a political prisoner who had been incarcerated for decades, is reported to have taken his own life in the high-security prison in the central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale. Tatlı’s death was announced by the relevant prison authorities on Tuesday, without providing further details. Human rights organizations are calling for an immediate investigation into the case.
According to the Human Rights Association (IHD), Tatlı was on the list of seriously ill prisoners. The Kurdish man, who had been imprisoned since 1999, had long suffered from several illnesses and had most recently been placed in a cell designed for three people, but in which he was kept alone.
Tatlı’s body was initially taken to the state hospital in Kırıkkale yesterday for an autopsy. In the evening, the body was transferred to his hometown, the district of Silvan in the province of Amed (Diyarbakır) for burial.
Newroz Uysal Aslan, a member of parliament for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), wrote on X about “another death in custody.” She pointed out that, according to the Ministry of Justice, 818 prisoners died in Turkish prisons in 2024 alone, including 68 cases that were recorded as suicides.
Aslan spoke of a “systemic problem” ranging from “suspicious deaths to the neglect of seriously ill prisoners.” “Prisons have become places where death through isolation, pressure, and negligence has become commonplace,” the politician said. She called for an independent investigation and an end to what she described as a “deadly prison regime.”