The health condition of 70-year-old Mehmet Ali Çelebi, who was brought from Bolu Type F Closed Prison to Ankara Sincan No 3 Type L Closed Prison for treatment, is getting worse day by day. Çelebi, who was diagnosed with leukemia about 15 days ago at the Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital in Ankara, had a stroke and has trouble with his eyes. Çelebi, who has high blood pressure, also has chronic kidney failure. Çelebi, who had gastric bleeding before and could not survive on his own, undergoes dialysis 3 days a week and chemotherapy treatment 2 days a week due to his health problems. Human rights defenders and their relatives demand the release of Çelebi, who has been in prison for 28 years.

 

HE CAN'T WALK ON HIS OWN

 

Explaining how his brother was when he last visited him at the prison, his brother Aydın Çelebi said: "He can't walk on his own. He holds on to the walls to walk. A guardian helped him to come to see me when I visited the hospital. He had a facial palsy which made things even worse. He have trouble with his sight and hearing. He was really in a bad shape. He told me he is held in solitary confinement because he goes back and forth between the hospital and the prison during Covid-19 pandemic. He is taken to the hospital 5 days a week."

 

THE FAMILY'S REQUEST

 

"I guess they will give his dead body to us" said his brother and added, "He can not survive in prison. They can send him home and he can be in house arrest. It is meaningless to keep him there. He is already dead. Who can he hurt? We live in İstanbul. We have to go back and forth between Ankara and İstanbul. It is hard. If he would be with us we could have helped him. He could be placed under house arrest. He can't survive in prison.

 

HE LOST 30 KILOS

 

His niece Filiz Çelebi who visits Çelebi regularly for the last 10 years told that he was 86 kilos at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak and now he is 56. Çelebi said: "He can not live alone. We spoke on the phone regularly. Recently I noticed that he is having a hard time speaking. I couldn't get what he said. He told me he could not meet his needs and he can not make it alone."

 

SECOND APPLICATION FROM THE IHD

 

Nuray Çevirmen, a member of the Central Executive Board (MYK) of the Human Rights Association (İHD), who followed Çelebi's situation closely and applied to the Ministry of Justice for the second time to postpone the execution, said that her attempts have still not yielded results. Emphasizing that Çelebi was not in a position to take care of himself, Çevirmen said, “He is going through a difficult process. It is impossible for him to live alone. We do not know what stage the cancer is. We have also applied for the provision of health reports."

 

MA / Zemo Ağgöz