News Center- Sibel Balaç, who went on an indefinite hunger strike on December 29, 2021 demanding a fair trial, the release of sick prisoners and the end of rights violations in prisons, was transferred to the Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital for a medical examination upon her lawyers’ request on September 9. The People's Law Office has announced that she has been sent back to Bakırköy Women’s Closed Prison without informing her lawyers and family.

In a statement, the People’s Law Office said that they have not got any information about in which ward their client has been held. “Despite the health report stating that our client ‘cannot stay alone’ in prison, she has been held in prison alone. This is a crime. Our client should immediately be released from prison,” the lawyers said.

Sibel Balaç was transferred to the Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital on September 9. She was taken out of the hospital by ambulance yesterday morning, and her lawyers were informed that she was taken to the Istanbul Forensic Medicine Institute. Her mother Nuray Balaç was not allowed to go with her daughter.

Sibel Balaç is a former teacher who participated in the Yüksel Street protests of 2018. She and other former public servants had been protesting human rights violations in Turkey and the purge of public servants after a 2016 coup attempt. They mainly gathered on Ankara’s Yüksel Street, in front of a human rights monument, to demand their jobs back. On December 10, 2018, she was detained along with other protesters. She was sent to prison on December 18, 2018. Then, she was sentenced to eight years, one month and 15 days in prison.

On December 29, 2020, she went on an indefinite hunger strike to demand a fair trial, the release of sick prisoners and the end of rights violations in Turkey’s prisons.