 to build a 50-bed hospital inside a prison complex on the outskirts of İstanbul that has long held journalists, opposition figures and other high-profile detainees.){kind=link}
Turkey’s government has set aside 1 billion lira ($23 million) to build a 50-bed hospital inside a prison complex on the outskirts of İstanbul that has long held journalists, opposition figures and other high-profile detainees.
The project, listed as “Marmara Penitentiary Institutions Campus Hospital Construction,” is slated to run from 2025 through 2029.
The new hospital would be built on the prison campus where detainees have included mayors, municipal officials and journalists swept up in politically charged investigations and trials.
The investment plan allocates 200 million lira for spending in 2026 and describes the facility as a 15,318-square-meter hospital with 50 beds.
The Justice Ministry has in recent years referred to the complex located in İstanbul’s Silivri district as the Marmara penitentiary campus, after changing the official name of what many Turks still call Silivri Prison.
The Marmara Prison Complex opened in 2008 as a high-security site west of İstanbul. It holds several thousand inmates in multiple blocks and has become a symbol of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule.
The complex has become a center for cases against followers of the faith-based Gülen movement and Kurdish activists in the last decade.
İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s strongest rival and the main opposition party’s presidential candidate, is also jailed in Marmara Prison along with other opposition mayors and municipal staff.
Human rights groups have documented allegations of overcrowding and abuse at Marmara Prison over the past decade. Former inmates and lawyers describe poor conditions, limited hot water, frequent strip-searches and “punishment” cells. International organizations, including the United Nations and Council of Europe, have raised concern about the use of counterterrorism laws to jail journalists, opposition politicians and students on the basis of nonviolent activity.