A conscientious step for Mahir Polat

He suffers from chronic heart disease and high blood pressure. The request for Mahir Polat, who has been hospitalized twice while in custody at Silivri Prison and underwent an angioplasty during his last transfer, to be tried without arrest due to his health problems is pending at the Council of Forensic Medicine.

48 hours have passed. Every minute is crucial. According to his lawyer's statement, his hypertension persists. There is a risk of a heart attack or brain hemorrhage at any moment.

Why is this humanitarian step being withheld when he could be tried without arrest?

Mahir Polat, who is being shuttled back and forth between the prison and the hospital, has seen his blood pressure rise to fatal levels. His brain and kidneys are being damaged. Moreover, he suffers from claustrophobia.

Why is this conscientious step not being taken?

It weighs heavily, very heavily…

I am the niece of a human rights defender who spent the most productive years of his life in prison after the 1980 coup because he dreamed of a free Turkey where citizens have equal rights.

My aunt developed MS while she was held for two and a half years in Mamak Military Prison. When she was released, she could not use one of her legs. The disease had paralyzed her right side. “At least she was left-handed,” we comforted ourselves as a family. Behind the endless, towering thick concrete walls of Mamak, seeing my aunt’s smile, which warmed my heart, was enough to erase all that darkness from my memory.

She had infected the whole family with the sense of humor she developed in prison. With my child’s eyes, I recorded the events in my memory more for their humorous side than for the painful days we lived through…

The prison conditions of that era had devastated her immune system. We lost my aunt not to MS, but to pancreatic cancer.

I had rebelled. Why is a person with an angelic heart, who runs to help everyone, loved by their friends, who has never harmed anyone, and who is as gentle as cotton, thrown into prison for no reason?

DEJA VU is our destiny. Years pass, but Turkey does not change.

Deja vu means seeing something you have experienced before again!

The fact that Mahir Polat is being shuttled between the hospital and prison, on the line between life and death, is a great injustice to him and to us.

Mahir Polat is the son of a working-class trade unionist. Like his father, he is a laborer, a veteran, and very hardworking.

He is a person who finds the joy of life in the energy of production, embraces the culture of solidarity, prioritizes merit, and has earned the respect and love of people from all walks of life and all classes because he advocates for the virtue of sharing.

He is a Yaşar Kemal enthusiast, who grew up reading Nazım’s poems and the Cumhuriyet book supplement. He is a graduate of Istanbul University in Art History and Archaeology.

Polat, who specializes in cultural heritage and urbanism, is the founder of İBB Miras (IMM Heritage) and the Chairman of the Board of the Turkish Foundation for the Protection of Monuments and Environmental Tourism Values. He is also a researcher with academic work in social history, museology, architectural history, and social memory, and possesses competent knowledge in many fields such as literature, history, and cinema. He had just completed his doctoral thesis.

In a field not considered very important in Turkey, he raised the bar for Istanbul’s urban culture by breathing new life into our cultural heritage.

He is a name who has an effort to give something not to himself, but to society, and for this reason, he is also loved by the base of the ruling party.

His passion is: “To revive, to resurrect values that have become ruins and are said to be dead.”

To make the public feel the sentiment that “these works belong to you. They will be a legacy from you to future generations.” To show that İBB Miras cannot be the privilege of anyone, but can only belong to the public. Mahir Polat is also a defender of the right to the city.

By achieving the difficult, he enabled the people of Istanbul to look at Istanbul, the most unique city in the world, with different eyes. The historical values he has revived show us all the importance of protecting the heritage of the city we live in.

Mahir Polat is not a convict; he is a detainee. Being tried without arrest due to his serious health problems is his humanitarian right.