The forced transfer to a hospital of hunger-striking prisoners Hüseyin Özen, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, and Gürkan Türkoğlu, who are held in the Antalya Pit-type Prison and have been on an indefinite hunger strike with four other prisoners demanding transfer, has sparked widespread outrage. Upon receiving the news, Ferdi Sarıkaya, a friend of Özen, Sağaltıcı, and Türkoğlu, went to Antalya City Hospital together with families who had been staging a sit-in protest in Ankara to demand that their children’s transfer requests be met. Sarıkaya spoke to ANF about the situation. Reacting to the treatment of his friends, Sarıkaya said, “There is an L-type prison just 100 meters from the Antalya Pit-type Prison. Instead of transferring our friends to this prison and resolving the issue, they forcibly took them to the hospital.”
Deadline set for prison administration until Wednesday
Political prisoners Hüseyin Özen, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, and Gürkan Türkoğlu, who have been on an indefinite hunger strike in the Antalya Pit-type Prison demanding transfer in protest against the absolute isolation and inhumane conditions imposed there, were revealed to have been forcibly taken to Antalya City Hospital five days ago without their consent and without informing anyone. The families of Özen, Sağaltıcı, and Türkoğlu, who have been holding a vigil in Ankara for the past month to demand that their children’s transfer requests be met, traveled to Antalya immediately after receiving the news and applied to the prosecutor’s office in order to visit them. Ferdi Sarıkaya, a friend of Özen, Sağaltıcı, and Türkoğlu who has supported their families during this difficult period, warned that any possible forced medical intervention against his friends, who were taken to the hospital against their will, would amount to murder. Sarıkaya also announced that the political prisoners in the Antalya Pit-type Prison had set a deadline for the prison administration. He said, “Hüseyin Özen, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, and Gürkan Türkoğlu have declared that if they are not returned to the prison by Wednesday, they will begin an indefinite hunger strike.”
Three prisoners reach critical stage of hunger strike
Ferdi Sarıkaya, who traveled from the resistance site in Ankara to Antalya together with the families of Hüseyin Özen, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, and Gürkan Türkoğlu, announced that, for the time being, no forced medical intervention has been carried out against his friends who were forcibly taken to the hospital. Sarıkaya explained that before being transferred to the hospital, Özen, Sağaltıcı, and Türkoğlu had been held in the same cell at the Antalya Pit-type Prison.
He said: “Fifty-six-year-old Hüseyin Özen has been on an indefinite hunger strike for 243 days, forty-four-year-old Tahsin Sağaltıcı for 263 days, and thirty-eight-year-old Gürkan Türkoğlu also for 263 days. The weight of all three of our friends has dropped to 40 kilograms, and they are now in a critical stage of the hunger strike. Before Hüseyin Özen was taken to the hospital, his family visited him in prison. They explained that although he is normally brought to the visiting area after the families arrive, this time Hüseyin and the other two friends on hunger strike were brought to the visiting area before the families. When they asked Hüseyin about this, he said, ‘They brought me to the visit ten minutes before you so that you would not see that I was brought in a wheelchair.’ They brought Hüseyin in a wheelchair before the visit and seated him on a chair, then allowed the family to enter. As if our friends would not tell their families, the prison administration is trying to conceal the seriousness of the situation so that it does not become known outside.”
Sarıkaya emphasized that the health conditions of his friends on hunger strike are deteriorating due to the failure to meet demands that could be fulfilled quite easily. He summarized the critical stage reached as follows: “During his last phone call with his father, our friend Tahsin Sağaltıcı asked for adult diapers because they are no longer able to get out of their beds. All three have developed edema in their legs, the sores in their mouths have become visible externally, and they are now struggling to take in liquids.”
Two elderly ill prisoners care for hunger strikers
Ferdi Sarıkaya drew attention to the fact that two elderly and ill political prisoners, who themselves require care, have been acting as attendants for his three friends whose health conditions have significantly deteriorated. Sarıkaya said: “Because our three friends are on a hunger strike, they are being held in a cell within the section reserved for sick prisoners. Since they are unable to meet each other’s needs, two elderly and ill prisoners in their seventies from the adjacent cell are acting as their attendants. The doors between the two cells have been opened to combine them. In this way, Mehmet is caring for Tahsin Sağaltıcı and Gürkan Türkoğlu, while Mustafa is caring for Hüseyin Özen. The truly dramatic point here is that these two elderly men are themselves individuals in need of care.”
Solution lies in transfer to L-type prison 100 meters away
Ferdi Sarıkaya said that the only demand of the three prisoners is to be transferred to prisons that are not of the pit-type and noted that fulfilling this request would not even require a transfer to another city. Sarıkaya said: “There is an L-type Prison just 100 meters from the Antalya Pit-type Prison. It is so close that there is no need for a vehicle; it can easily be reached on foot. If our friends on hunger strike, along with four other political prisoners, are transferred to the L-type Prison, the problem will be resolved. However, instead of fulfilling this demand, which could be easily met, the prison administration and the Ministry of Justice forcibly took our friends to the hospital.”
Families of prisoners resist in Ankara for 30 days
Ferdi Sarıkaya emphasized that while his friends are weakening day by day, their families are also in a state of deep distress. Sarıkaya said: “Hüseyin Özen’s mother, Ayşe Özen, is 80 years old; Gürkan Türkoğlu’s mother, Lütfiye, is 66; and Tahsin Sağaltıcı’s father, Hilal Sağaltıcı, is 70. All three have been staging a sit-in protest in Ankara for a month to demand that their children’s transfer requests be met. Uncle Hilal previously suffered a brain hemorrhage and has a herniated disc, yet he has been keeping vigil in Ankara for 30 days for his son. Moreover, one of his fingers is fractured, but because his son is on a hunger strike, he does not even want to go to the hospital for an examination. I have supported this resistance from the very beginning.
There was no intervention until the 26th day of our sit-in protest, but over the past five days, detentions accompanied by torture have begun. Apart from the mothers, Hüseyin Özen’s two sisters and his brother, Uncle Hilal, and I have been repeatedly taken into custody. Instructions appear to have been given not to detain the mothers, and they are not being touched. However, other family members and I are taken into custody without hesitation and subjected to torture. By refusing to meet the demands of our three friends, they are effectively torturing both them and their families. Families of the prisoners who had scheduled appointments to meet with members of parliament were even barred from entering the parliament building. No one visited us at the resistance site except for members of parliament from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). Our elderly mothers were forced to go to the offices of Republican People’s Party (CHP) members of parliament, who promised that they would find a solution.”
Taken to the same hospital days before the forced transfer
Ferdi Sarıkaya stated that Hüseyin Özen, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, and Gürkan Türkoğlu had been taken to Antalya City Hospital a few days before they were forcibly transferred there, again against their will and upon the instruction of the Ministry of Justice. Sarıkaya said: “They took our three friends to the same hospital to assess their health conditions. When our friends refused to undergo medical examinations, they were sent back to prison. A few days later, they were again taken to the same hospital, this time by force. We are currently unable to receive direct information, but we have learned from their lawyers that they rejected forced medical intervention and that no intervention has been carried out for this reason. From here, I would like to once again call on the administration of Antalya City Hospital, and particularly Akdeniz University Hospital. Forced intervention is murder and torture. Before this forced transfer to the hospital took place, we had also visited the Antalya Medical Chamber to express our concerns about the possibility of such an intervention, and now our concerns have proven to be justified because our friends were forcibly taken to the hospital. Our friends Özen, Sağaltıcı, and Türkoğlu have legitimate demands and are resisting for this reason. Any forced intervention against them would be murder. Instead of keeping our friends in the hospital against their will, the authorities should immediately transfer them, along with four other political prisoners held in the Antalya Pit-type Prison, to the L-type Prison located just 100 meters away.”
Detained before visiting their children
It was reported that Lütfiye Türkoğlu, the mother of Gürkan Türkoğlu; Hilal Sağaltıcı, the father of Tahsin Sağaltıcı; Ismail Özen, the brother of Hüseyin Özen; and Ferdi Sarıkaya, who provided the interview, were detained by the Political Branch of the Antalya Provincial Police Department on 14 April 2026, one day before their scheduled visit to their children at Antalya City Hospital on 15 April 2026.
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