Tahir Gürdal died 13 days after his prison sentence in Turkey was suspended. The 53-year-old man had been in the F-type maximum security prison in Van since 2014 for allegedly supporting terrorism. While in prison, he contracted lung cancer and was transferred to Amed (tr. Diyarbakir) for medical treatment. At the hospital, he was chained to the bed for weeks while being treated with foot shackles. According to his son Birhat Gürdal, he was already bedridden at that time and could not stand up. On 28 November, the sentence was lifted. Tahir Gürdal died in hospital on Friday. His body was transferred to his birthplace, Yüksekova district of Hakkari, where the funeral took place in the early morning.

The Human Rights Association (IHD) assesses the death of the political prisoner as the end result of a whole series of rights violations. The chairman of the IHD branch in Hakkari, lawyer Yusuf Çobanoğlu, said that medical treatment in which the sick person is shackled is a form of torture. Such measures must be stopped immediately, Çobanoğlu demanded.

According to IHD data, as of April 2022, there were over 1,500 sick prisoners in prison or pre-trial detention in Turkey, 651 of whom are seriously ill. Lawyer Çobanoğlu pointed out that forensic medicine in Turkey repeatedly certifies that seriously ill prisoners are fit to be detained, despite expert opinions to the contrary, thus violating the prisoners' right to life.

Turkey has also seen an increasing number of suspicious deaths in custody. A few days ago, Emre Abalak died in the T-type prison in the Kurdish province of Şırnak. According to the prison administration's version, the 26-year-old prisoner fell in the washroom on Wednesday and hit his head on the floor. He died a short time later in hospital of a brain hemorrhage.

In September, a particularly dramatic death behind bars caused horror after it became known that the political prisoner Barış Keve was found dead in an isolation cell in the prison of Malatya under still unexplained circumstances. According to human rights organisations, at least 73 prisoners have died in Turkish custody since the beginning of the year. Most of them were imprisoned for political reasons and were included in the list of seriously ill prisoners.