THE father of hunger-striking lawyer Aytac Unsal has hit out at the lawlessness in Turkey, saying the state “expects our children to die” as he kept a vigil outside the hospital his son was taken to last week.

Nihat Unsal is unable to enter the hospital: his son is being held there in isolation under heavy guard since a court ruled that he should be transferred there for treatment against his wishes.

At a hearing last week the Forensic Medicine Institute said that prison was detrimental to the health of both Mr Unsal and fellow hunger-striking lawyer Ebru Timtik.

But instead of releasing the pair, the judge decided that, because the pair have been charged with terrorism offences, imprisonment was proportionate and ruled that they should remain behind bars as they present a flight risk.

Mr Unsal senior was shocked at the decision and spoke out: “If he had been released, he would have been saved, and so would we.”

Aytac Unsal has been on a death fast for 185 days and his father warned that he was now unable to take sugar any more due to problems with his throat. Conditions are much worse in hospital than in prison, he said.

He told the ANF news agency: “I guess they expect our children to die. We have really reached the point where words end. We’re in shock. If lawyers in a country are not judged fairly, it means that the nail of justice is out, and we can see it.”

“If they keep them inside, they will speed up their death. Because leaving our children in these conditions officially means leaving them to die. They don’t accept treatment anyway, so it doesn’t make sense to keep them here.”

He called for the lawyers, members of the People’s Law Association, to be released from prison before it was too late.

Mr Unsal was jailed for 10 years after a deeply flawed and highly politicised trial in March 2019. Ms Timtik was given a 13-and-a-half-year sentence in the same case.

The pair are deemed terrorists and supporters of the banned Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C). During the trial, they were accused of “communicating the organisation’s messages to captured members and acting as couriers.”

The convictions were welcomed by Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who insisted that the defendants were a “pillar of the DHKP/C” and that their imprisonment had helped to neutralise the organisation.

The pair are demanding a retrial, maintaining that their convictions were based on evidence supplied by anonymous witnesses and an unreliable state informant.