The Zere case: Awaiting word of a daughter's death

Nearly 15 years ago, Güler Zere was sentenced to life in prison for membership in an organization that sought to overthrow the constitutional order. But now Turkey’s main medical association is charging that bureaucracy, negligence and indifference have converted that penalty into a death sentence. It could come any day.

Even President Abdullah Gül cannot commute the sentence borne by the oral cancer that has ravaged the 37-year-old in prison, a disease doctors say has grown terminal in the absence of effective treatment. All he has the power to do is let her die outside prison walls, a matter mired in procedure and red tape.

“From now on, I wait only to receive my child’s body,” said her father, Haydar Zere. “My hope to have her alive is over.”

The Turkish Medical Association, or TTB, called on authorities last week either to pardon Zere immediately or lose any chance of allowing her to say farewell to her family and experience a peaceful death, as her medical condition has reached a terminal point. Meanwhile, the Forensic Medicine Institution is expected to release its recommendation Thursday, after postponing its decision twice after stating that some documents in her file were missing information.

It was only on Tuesday, after a year of waiting, that the prisoner’s parents, Haydar and Güllü Zere, were allowed to see their daughter together. As Güler Zere is still being treated in the prisoners’ ward of Çukurova Balcalı Hospital in the southern province of Adana, only one person per week is allowed to visit her. However, on Tuesday, with special permission from the prosecutor’s office, her mother and father visited her together.  

“Her mother, witnessing her daughter’s final situation, went into shock. She fainted after only saying, ‘My daughter…’ to the microphones,” wrote Mehmet Altan, columnist for the daily Star.

“At the end of 2009, as a state and a society, we committed one more murder with the cold-bloodedness of a serial killer. Where do you stand on this murder?” Altan asked at the end of his column on Monday.

It is not only Altan who regards the inaction as a murder. The Istanbul branch of the Progressive Lawyers Association, or ÇHD, has accused the Forensic Medicine Institution of attempted murder, misconduct in office and negligence and filed a criminal compliant against the 42 members of the institution’s general board.

“A murder is committed openly. Her right to live is being breached,” said her lawyer Taylan Tanay, who is also the head of the ÇHD’s Istanbul branch.

This feeling of hopelessness caps a difficult year, in which Zere has undergone a painful and exhausting ordeal. It was September 2008 when Zere started to complain of an abscess in her mouth. “[Authorities] did not pay the necessary attention. It was November when she was transferred to hospital. We have already filed a complaint against the doctor in that hospital, too, as Zere was only given an appointment in December, leading to much lost time,” said Tanay.  

On March 12, Zere’s lawyers applied to the prosecutor’s office in Elbistan, a district of the southern province of Kahramanmaraş, for a pardon. In May, lawyers sought to learn the status of their application, but Orhan Irmak, the prosecutor in Elbistan, told them there was no application. Tanay said the application had been lost. The lawyers then sent a second application, leading the prosecutor to ask Çukurova University’s Forensic Medicine Branch to evaluate Zere’s medical condition. Doctors concluded that Zere’s sentence should be suspended so she could receive treatment. However, the prosecutor then asked the Forensic Medicine Institution to evaluate Zere’s condition. “On July 6, Zere was examined for only five minutes by a board without an oncologist or an ear-nose-and-throat expert present. The report said Zere should stay in the prisoners’ ward of the hospital,” Tanay said.

Lawyers objected to the report and this time the case came before the general board of the Forensic Medicine Institution. The conclusion of the general board has been awaited since July 17. On Aug. 27, the board gathered for the first time to discuss Zere and promptly postponed the gathering, saying that there were documents missing that detailed her treatment.

“We, Zere’s family and the TTB have all these documents. It is also legally permissible to ask for relevant documents via e-mail or fax. How can they not have the documents?” Tanay asked.

On Sept. 10, the board gathered again at a time when Zere had recently received radiation therapy. The board once again postponed the meeting without making any decision, saying that they need to wait for eight weeks to assess whether the radiotherapy had sent Zere’s cancer into remission. However, Tanay said that Zere underwent surgery on Oct. 12 for another tumor, suggesting that her cancer is still obviously present. On Thursday, the board will meet one more time over Zere’s case.

Haluk İnce, the head of the Forensic Medicine Institution, rejected all the allegations. “We do everything necessary. Her lawyers also know that we do what we can. I am soon going to share with the public [through our Web site] what has happened,” reported the daily Hürriyet on Wednesday.

Oral Çalışlar, columnist for the daily Radikal wrote Wednesday: “Our famous Forensic Medicine Institution cannot find time to handle Zere’s case. It is obvious that they are overloaded. Also, what happens if one more ‘terrorist’ dies?”

Zere was a member of the illegal, far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, or DHKP/C. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, although her sentence was later amended to 34 years.