Acclaimed novelist held in ‘unacceptable’ jail conditions, campaigners claim

Renowned Turkish novelist Aslı Erdoğan says she is facing “permanent damage” from the treatment she is receiving in prison after her arrest last week.

Erdoğan, an award-winning and celebrated Turkish novelist, was arrested in her home on the night of 16 August, according to a statement from her French publisher Actes Sud.

She was a columnist and member of the pro-Kurdish opposition daily Özgür Gündem’s advisory board, which was shut down under the state of emergency that followed the failed coup of 15 July.

She was arrested with more than 20 other journalists and employees of the paper and was subsequently charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation” and “undermining national unity”.

Erdoğan, whom the French literary magazine Lire named as one of the 50 most promising authors of the future, told the daily Hürriyet through her lawyer, Nesrullah Oğuz, that she was being treated in prison “in a way that will leave permanent damage on my body”.

She said she was sleeping in a bed that had previously been urinated in, and that she was not able to get access to her medication.

“My pancreas and digestive system don’t work properly, but my medicine has not been given to me for five days. I am diabetic and I need special nutrition. But in jail I am only able to eat yoghurt,” she said.

“Also, even though I suffer from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, I have not been allowed access to open air since entering prison.”

Her detention has prompted a wave of calls for her release.

“With the arrest of one of the nation’s most celebrated and internationally known authors, we can see that no poet, novelist, or playwright is safe in President Erdoğan’s Turkey,” said the novelist and translator Maureen Freely, president of English PEN, which is calling for the immediate release of those detained following the raid on Özgür Gündem “solely in connection with their work or peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression”.

A petition calling for Erdoğan’s release has been signed by almost 25,000 people.

Describing her as “one of the world’s most notable novelists”, the petition says that “her only wish for her country is to live in a better, more democratic and civilised society”, and that she “produces work towards this wish while promoting Turkish literature globally”.