Mehmet Yamaç, a seriously ill prisoner in Kayseri Bünyan No.2 T-Type Closed Prison, made a phone call to his guardian, Uğur Sayan, 2 days ago and told him he was going on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the arbitrary and inhuman attitude of the prison administration and to draw the attention of the public to the pressures and fascistic practices in prisons.

Sayan said that Yamaç, who is in the ill prisoners list of the Human Rights Association (IHD), had difficulty in breathing in the phone call he made with his family on 2 September.

Sayan said that Yamaç had told him that he had been having problems with his lungs for a long time, that he was short of breath, and that he had to be connected to the oxygen machine even several times a day. Yamaç said that the oxygen device was on the second floor of the prison and it was far from the ward where he is located, therefore he told the prison administration that he needed the oxygen device near him and even proposed to buy one himself.

Sayan reported his phone call with Yamaç as follows: “The prison administration said that in order to get an oxygen device, they had to get a doctor report from the hospital. Mehmet Yamaç stated that going to the hospital, because of the pandemic process was very risky for him because of his chronic illness, and that the requested report was already in the prison file. He added that his lung problem has been going on for 17 years due to the gases thrown by the army during the "return to life" operation [the attacks on hunger strikers in prisons in 2000]. Yamaç said that the prison administration was aware of all this and that it was deliberately sent to the hospital to put him in a risky and dangerous environment. Finally, he said that he will start an indefinite hunger strike on 28 September, in order to protest this arbitrary and inhumane attitude of the prison administration and to attract the attention of the public to the oppression and fascistic practices in prisons in general. He invited the democratic public and all relevant institutions to be sensitive.”