A Kurdish woman has began a hunger strike to protest against death threats to her son received in a prison in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakır (Amed) province, Mezopotamya Agency reported.

The prison warden threatened Kurbani Özcan and prison guards also refused to provide the Kurdish man with his asthma medication, the family told the Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD) and the Diyarbakır bar association in mid-August. Özcan has been subjected to violence and insults since 9 August and has attempted suicide in his cell, according to the ÖHD.

Özcan told his mother, Gülan Ateş, about the prison warden’s threats, where he said Özcan would “not get out of there alive”, and that his mother would have to collect his body from the prison.

Gülan Ateş had planned to continue her hunger strike until the family’s demand for Özcan’s transfer to their hometown of Erzurum is met, she told reporters. However, on the second day of her protest, the elderly woman was hospitalised after catching a cold from the night she spent outside.

Özcan also plans to go on a hunger strike, he told reporters via his mother.