Kurdish politician Aysel Tuğluk, who is suffering from dementia, was released from Kandıra No. 1 F Type Closed Prison in Kocaeli province on Thursday evening after the Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) said in a report that she could not "stay in prison". After her release from prison, Tuğluk went to Istanbul, where she started receiving treatment.

Former HDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder, as well as Kurdish politicians Ahmet Türk and Sırrı Sakık visited Tuğluk in Istanbul.

Sakık shared a photo of the meeting on the social media with the following message: “We have reunited with our dear Aysel today. We will overcome this together. Aysel has always struggled and she will get over this as well.”

BACKGROUND

Kurdish politician Aysel Tuğluk was put in Kandıra prison in the western Turkish province of Kocaeli in December 2016, suffering from dementia while in custody. Last year, an expert opinion from the forensic department of Kocaeli University determined that the 57-year-old is no longer fit to be imprisoned due to chronic and progressive Alzheimer's dementia and should be released from prison immediately. The Forensic Medicine Institute (ATK) in Istanbul, an institution of the Ministry of Justice, made a contrary finding and saw no reason to suspend the execution of the sentence.

On August 5, the release of Aysel Tuğluk was decided by the court in the Kobanê trial in Ankara. 108 people are accused in the political show trial, including the former executive committee of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). 21 defendants are in prison. The defendants are accused of terrorist offences and murder in dozens of cases in connection with the protests during the ISIS attack on Kobanê in October 2014.

Aysel Tuğluk, who also represented Abdullah Öcalan as a lawyer, has already been sentenced in several cases, while other trials are still pending. In February 2020, the Turkish Court of Appeal confirmed Tuğluk's highest prison sentence to date, of ten years' imprisonment. She was convicted of "directing a terrorist organisation" due to her function as co-chair of the grassroots alliance "Democratic Society Congress" (DTK). In October 2021, a sentence of twenty months imprisonment followed against the former member of parliament for alleged terror propaganda in 2012 and 2013. In the so-called Kobanê trial in Ankara, she faces an aggravated life sentence.

In mid-August, the Constitutional Court (AYM) made an interim decision regarding the application for the postponement of the execution and release of Tuğluk, whose request to postpone the execution of her sentence and to be released was rejected.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice, the General Directorate of Security, the Gendarmerie General Command and the Intelligence Service (MIT) objected to the release of Aysel Tuğluk. The Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court rejected the objections and submitted the file to the Ankara 23rd High Criminal Court.