A "well-type" wing: no sunlight reaches the floor of the prison holding Kuytul

On 14 September 2026, Ömer Hakseven, one of Alparslan Kuytul's lawyers, described the conditions at Erzurum Dumlu Prison, where his client is held. According to Hakseven the prison is high-security and built to what is called a "well type" plan: three floors, separate wings on each, and yard walls around 13 metres high. Even at midday the sun does not reach the ground; the sky is visible only when the head is tilted all the way back.

In the F-type prison where Kuytul was previously held, birds would come down into the yard. Hakseven says this one is so deep that not even birds can reach it.

The lawyer's statement in full

"Well Type"

I want to talk about the prison conditions of Alparslan Hoca, who is held on remand at Erzurum Dumlu Prison.

The prison he is in is high-security and built to what is called a "well type" plan. It has three floors, with separate wings on each. The walls around its yard are about 13 metres high. It therefore feels like being at the bottom of a well. Even when the sun is at its highest it does not reach the ground. He told me that to make some use of the sun he sometimes climbs onto a chair and stretches his hands up towards the light. He can see the sky only by tilting his head all the way back. In police custody he slept on bare boards for three days, so his neck seized up and for the first few days he could not look up at the sky at all.

In the F-type prison, birds used to come into the yard. But this place is so deep that not even birds can come down. He would dampen bread a little and throw it up onto the roof for them. The roof is so high that it takes him real effort to get it there. He even injured his arm once. The other day, when he was late throwing the bread up, a bird came down into his yard for the first time and flew straight off again. "It was as if it were saying, 'You're late today,'" he said.

His eyes filled as he said this, thinking of God: "People who only talk and are never in the thick of it have never understood the beauty of paradise or the worth of the cause. Yet there is nothing more beautiful than God."

He said that in every prayer he prays for his students who are in other prisons: "In all five daily prayers I pray for my friends. I pray for them more than for myself. I think I have prayed for my wife two or three times."

His hair has grown long and is bothering him. His beard likewise. "If they had at least given me scissors, I would have trimmed my beard," he thinks.

Despite all this, when he is asked "How are you?" he always answers, "I'm solid as a rock." And of those who sent him to prison he says: "We are in a garden of paradise. God has made this 12-square-metre cell a paradise for us. They do not understand this..."