22 August: DAY of ACTION – Mobilize and Save the Life of Serkan Onur Yilmaz

Let´s safe the life of Serkan Onur Yilmaz

Serkan Onur Yilmaz is on death fast for nearly 300 days.
He transformed his indefinite hunger strike to a death fast resistance at 31st July 2025.

The Turkish state wants to silence any resistance and especially to silence the voices of hungerstrikes against pit-type isolation prisons.
Serkan is currently on the verge of death. By refusing to grant his request for so many days, it is obvious that the authorities in Turkey watch the slow and silent death of Serkan.
Therefore it’s a duty and necessity to bring the voice they want to bury in the pit-types to the public.
Serkan Onur Yılmaz is in a lot of pain, has difficulty sleeping, sometimes cannot breathe, and can no longer walk. These things show that he is now very close to death.

Serkan is not fighting for himself, but for his comrades, who are still in the Y Type prison of Antalya.

Here are some suggestions, what can be done urgently to save the life of Serkan Onur Yilmaz and other prisoners whose hunger strikes are advancing as well.

1) Fikret Akar is one of the prisoners on an indefinite hunger strike. His wife has made an urgent appeal to the UN for the examination of the pit type prisons.
Because prolonged isolation is torture. It is death spread over time.
According to Turkish law, prisoners cannot be held in solitary confinement for more than 20 days.
In other words, prisoners are living in prison within a prison without even a court order.

Let’s share this appeal to the UN on our social media accounts. Let’s tag the UN’s social media accounts. To achieve that UN gots an eye on the case and really takes a quick decision concerning the Pit Type prisons.
Let’s also tag the accounts of the Ministry of Justice of Turkey. This will show them that the prisoners are not alone and that a wide public is following the case.
Tagging is very simple: it is done with the @ sign.

+ UN X account: @UN
+ UN Instagram account: unitednations
==
+ Turkish Ministry of Justice X account: adalet_bakanlik
+ Turkish Ministry of Justice Instagram account: adalet_bakanlik

Click here for the URGENT APPEAL TO UN

2-) Let Friday, 22 August 2025, be a day of mobilisation for Serkan.
a-) Hold a protest in front of the Turkish Embassy or Consulate in the country you’re located.
You can also print out the mentioned Urgent Appeal to the UN against the Pit-Types and deliver it by hand.

3-) Make calls to Bolu F Type and Antalya Y Type prisons to express concern about his health and life
Three words are enough: Serkan Onur Yılmaz

Bolu F Type: +90 374 245 1201 (Serkan Onur Yilmaz is imprisoned there. He was transfered from Antalya Y type prisons, as he demanded. The reason why he is still continuing and even in a death fast is, his demand that also his friend who remained in Antalya should be transfered from this pit-type prison)

Antalya Y Type:
+90 242 423 12 86, +90 242 423 13 71, +90 242 423 13 46, +90 242 423 12 40

4-) Spread posters and flyers about pit-type prisons and inform the public.

5-) Organise tent protests: A protest tent can be installed in front of an institution while organizing a rotating hunger strike there.

6) Send letters to the Ministry of Justice and to the prisoners to express your support for their legitimate demands

ADDRESS TO:

E-Mail: info@adalet.gov.tr

Letter example:

**
EN

To the Ministry of Justice in Turkey
Justice Minister, Mr. Yilmaz Tunc

Dear Mr. Tunc,

I write this letter to express my deepest concern regarding the “living” conditions for inmates of the new prison types S and Y in your country as well as in “High Security Prisons”.
These so-called high security prisons, in which prisoners are systematically isolated and subjected to restrictive measures, are now on the agenda on an almost daily basis.

As a result, many prisoners have been on prolonged hunger strike for three years and their health conditions have started to deteriorate, with 10 prisoners on indefinite hunger strike today.

In particular, the conditions of Serkan Onur Yilmaz, who has been on death fast for nearly 300 days, recently held at Bolu’s F Type Prison is life-threatening.
Serkan Onur Yilmaz demands that also his friends are transferred from the Antalya High Security prison to a prison with normal, non-restrictive conditions.
I call on you to meet the just demands of the detainees and to stop the forced transfers to these isolation prisons, which are far from humanity and the rule of law.

I strongly oppose the unlawful transfer of political prisoners to these prisons, where no human being can live, and I call on you to stop this practice.
I also call on you to fulfil your responsibility for the life and integrity of the detainees. We have no more time to lose.

Yours sincerely