Ill prisoner Mehmet Şerif Öner (38) in Şakran T Type prison is on hunger strike for 19 days to protest the denial of treatment for his neurologic disease.

Öner is serving a life sentence and jailed for eleven years for alleged membership to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

PKK prisoner was transferred from Kırıklar F Type prison to Şakran T-1 prison in the western province of İzmir nine months ago, since when he is facing challenging conditions and right violations. The prison administration has denied him treatment since he was forced to go to hospital together with ordinary prisoners who assaulted him while on the way to the hospital. In response to his objection to go to hospital with ordinary prisoners, the administration threatened him saying that “Either you go with them or we deny you treatment”.

The inmate's father Ömer Öner strongly condemned the prison administration for denying his son treatment and voiced concerns over Öner's state of health.

Öner said they were denied permission to talk with the prison administration over the situation of his son who -he said- was currently facing the risk of transfer to another prison.

Noting they have also applied to the İzmir Branch of Human Rights Association (IHD), Öner called on the prison administration to urgently satisy his son's demand for treatment, and added that “Our family will otherwise also start hunger strike outside the prison as of tomorrow”.

Ömer Öner warned that the Ministry of Justice and Şakran prison administration would be responsible for any negative consequences his son will face, and warned that his son was suffering a pain and would die if the administration doesn't meet his demand soon.

Öner stressed that it is not only his son who was denied treatment in Şakran prison, saying that all ill prisoners in the jail were left to die in prison. “The administration is simply denying them treatment and medicine for them to die as soon as possible”, he added.