In this issue of our bulletin, we will cover torture, isolation and other rights violations in the prisons of the Turkish state.
The Human Rights Association (İHD), the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (THİV) and the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), who all remain steadfast in their struggle to defend human rights in Turkey, issued a joint statement on 31st May 2024 drawing attention to the attacks of the Turkish state against prisoners.
In Turkey, where fascism reigns, the exercise of any democratic right, the expression of thought and criticism of the government carries the risk of being tortured, arrested and heavily punished. However, the dozens of new isolation prisons opened every year will not be enough to silence the political opposition.
According to official data, the number of prisoners in the prisons of the Turkish state, which was 55,870 in 2005, increased to 329,151 as of 2nd May 2024.
However, the total capacity of the 403 prisons is only 295.328. There are 13,891 women and 2,983 children convicted and detained in prisons.
The number of prisoners in prisons was 360,722 on 3rd July 2023. The current government made a regulation on 15th July 2023 and released approximately 110 thousand judicial prisoners, fascist gang members, etc. and reduced the number of prisoners to 251,101 on 1st September 2023.
The increase in the number of prisoners from 251,101 on 1st September 2023 to 329,151 by 2nd May 2024 shows that 78,050 people, i.e. approximately 10,000 people per month, were arrested in a short period of eight months. This is the highest increase in the number of prisoners in Turkey’s recent history.
This data also shows that the prisons were over capacity by 33,823 people on 2 May 2024. Although no data regarding the period from 2 May to the present day has not yet been disclosed, it is clear that the overcrowding will have increased considerably.
Turkey has the highest number and proportion of prisoners in prisons amongst all members of the Council of Europe. According to the 2022 Council of Europe Annual Criminal Statistics on Prison Populations published on 26th June 2023, 355 out of every 100 thousand people in Turkey are in prison. This ratio is 117 on average in Council of Europe countries.
Since 2021, 51 new types of isolation prisons, including 22 Y-type prisons, 22 high-security prisons and 7 S-type prisons, have been put into use in Turkey (https://cte.adalet.gov.tr/Home/haritaliste). 12 more prisons are planned to be opened in 2024.
The most distinctive feature of these new type prisons, where most of the prisoners are kept in solitary cells and very few in
three-person cells, is that they aggravate the conditions of isolation/solitary with both their architectural structures and daily regime. Prisoners in these prisons spend at least 22.5 hours a day in solitary confinement.
In their letters, the prisoners state that the cells in S and Y type prisons do not have ventilation, that these prisons are built to kill slowly in such a way that one cannot see the sun.
A daily ventilation allowance of 1-1.5 hours a day is used in places called ‘well-type’, which are far away from the cells, surrounded by high walls and wire fences, where no toilet or other needs can be met. In other words, even ventilation is practised as a form of torture.
According to a report by the HRA Central Prisons Commission, the practices in S-type prisons cause immense damage, especially to human psychology. Suspicious deaths, suicide cases, torture and ill-treatment occur frequently. It is stated that in this type of prison, prisoners’ relations with both the outside and with other prisoners are restricted as much as possible, their ties are cut and that this is a deliberate state policy.
Isolation is becoming more and more widespread. This practice cuts the prisoners’ ties with the outside and with other prisoners inside, completely isolates them from the outside environment, weakens the immune system, leads to the development of perception and sensory disorders, decreases prisoners’ sense of sight and hearing, and leads to disorientation in space, time and place, attention and mood disorders. In addition, it is also stated that living in these narrow, small and sunlight-free spaces without being able to move sufficiently causes many diseases, especially musculoskeletal system diseases, diabetes, hypertension and cancer.
The Turkish state continues to kill sick prisoners
The Turkish state continues to kill sick prisoners by preventing their treatment and not releasing them.
In Turkish prisons, where there are around 2 thousand sick prisoners, 651 of whom are seriously ill, the treatment of sick prisoners is prevented. When prisoners are allowed to be taken to a doctor or hospital as a result of their own long resistance, they are subjected to practices that offend human dignity such as strip searches, oral searches and handcuffed examinations. Political prisoners who do not accept these practices are taken back to their cells without even being examined.
On average 2-3 prisoners die every month in Turkish prisons. Recently, Yıldırım Han, Rêber Soydan, Ercan Çakar, Ergün Akdoğan and Şefik Esen died.
Şefik Esen, 36 years old and suffering from many chronic diseases, who was being held in Afyon Bolvadin T Type Closed Prison, died on 27 June. Esen, who should have been released for his treatment but was transferred to hospital when he was on the brink of death, died in hospital on the 40th day of his treatment. Şefik Esen’s body was handed over to his family without any medical precautions and with open wounds.
Yıldırım Han, a seriously ill prisoner in Şırnak T Type Closed Prison, died on 20 June.
Ergün Akdoğan, an ill prisoner in Tekirdağ F Type Closed Prison No 1, died on 23 May.
The following short message sent by sick prisoner Özge Özbek summarises the state’s approach to sick prisoners: “I am Özge Özbek, held in Sincan Prison. I suffer from multiple brain tumours, epilepsy and asthma. I am also being treated for intense depression. I had open brain surgery in 2020, and on the 3rd day of my surgery, I was taken from the hospital and arrested.”
Isolation is being extended – No news from Abdullah Öcalan for 40 months
The Turkish state’s attacks and usurpations of rights against prisoners in prisons are very comprehensive. Among these, strict isolation and the prevention of treatment of sick prisoners are attacks that complement each other and give the essence of the state’s policy on prisons.
The policy of strict isolation is implemented at two different levels.
With the strict isolation policy applied to all political prisoners, the intention is to destroy the social relations of prisoners, to alienate them from their identities and personalities, and to destroy them spiritually and intellectually.
The isolation imposed on the Kurdish People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, symbolised in İmralı, has a more severe and deeper character. The target of the isolation imposed in İmralı is the “collective national existence of the Kurds”. The Kurdish nation is being pushed to reject its own collective national existence. This not only aggravates the isolation, but also conditions the policy of depriving sick prisoners of treatment.
Prisoners Ömer Hayri Konar, Hamili Yıldırım and Veysi Aktaş, who are held in the same prison (İmralı) with Kurdish People’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, have not been heard from for 40 months. Neither lawyers nor families can meet with Öcalan and the other 3 prisoners. Neither can they communicate by phone, letter, etc.
Kurdish political prisoners in prisons, on the other hand, continue to boycott court appearances, phone calls and family visits, demanding “freedom for Abdullah Öcalan and a solution to the Kurdish problem”. Political prisoners had started a hunger strike on 27 November 2023 and took their hunger strike to a new stage as of 4 April and decided to boycott the courts and to boycott phone calls and family visits.
Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) report: “The whole country has become a place of torture”
The 2023 Treatment and Rehabilitation Centres Report was published by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), which has been working for more than 30 years for the prevention of torture and the treatment and rehabilitation of torture survivors. Since 2014, 7,548 people have applied to the HRFT on the grounds of torture.
According to the report, following the State of Emergency (SoE) declared in 2016, torture has increased extraordinarily not only in prisons, but also during the intervention of law enforcement officers to peaceful assemblies and demonstrations, on the streets, in open spaces, in places such as homes and workplaces, in police vehicles; in other words, in unofficial places of detention and in environments other than detention.
The report also reveals that 52.8 per cent of those subjected to torture and other ill-treatment were subjected to torture in official detention centres such as security directorates and 7.5 per cent in police stations, and that the Istanbul Security Directorate is by far the most common place where detainees are subjected to torture.
Lastly, lawyer Bahtiyar Kandeğer stated that on 27.06.2024 at around 01.00, he and a female lawyer friend went to the Istanbul Police Headquarters for two of his clients who were detained, that he was beaten almost to death by police officers at the Istanbul Police Headquarters and shared pictures of the torture.
According to the report, prisons were one of the places where torture was extremely intense in 2023. Accordingly, it is stated that the number of people subjected to these practices increases by approximately 30-40 thousand per year.
(https://tihv.org.tr/tedavi-ve-rehabilitasyon-raporlari/2023-tedavi-ve-rehabilitasyon-merkezleri-raporu/)
Freedom for prisoners of the Kobane Trial!
The trial against former Co-Chairs Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş and executives of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which the fascist Palace regime has held captive since November 2016, was concluded on 16 May. The case, in which 24 politicians were sentenced to a total of 407 years in prison, including 30 years and 3 months for Figen Yüksekdağ and 43 years for Selahattin Demirtaş, was an act of revenge against the Kobane Resistance.
The defeat of ISIS with the joint struggle of communists and international revolutionaries under the leadership of the YPG-YPJ, despite all kinds of support from the Turkish state, who destroyed the dreams of the fascist dictator Erdoğan’s “Kobane is sure to fall”, meant the defeat of the Erdoğan dictatorship. The former HDP co-chairs and other politicians on trial judged fascism in the courtrooms. Neither the long detention period nor the long prison sentences could subjugate them. It was a political trial whose decision was made in the palace beforehand.
We publish the public messages of Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş after the announcement of the verdict:
Yüksekdağ: “The verdict in the Kobanê case is not a conclusion but a new beginning in our just democratic struggle and political freedom movement. During the 8 years we were held hostage, we defended the honour, freedom and justice of our peoples, women and workers. We have embraced social conscience,
solidarity and the noble values of great humanity against the massacring, rapist ISIS army and those who hold its strings and its accomplices. We have been subjected to judicial torture and persecution by those who have no share of these values. The heavy penalty verdicts are an attack on the possibilities of the peoples of Turkey to live together, on the ideal of a common homeland and democratic republic. We will continue to resist the liquidation operations of democratic politics and to frustrate every move against the common life and future of our peoples.
We cling to the consciousness, strength and confidence of our righteousness. We believe that our peoples will also embrace these and walk with determination on the path to freedom. Let no one’s face fall, let no one’s heart darken. Until today, they have not been able to bring us to our knees. They have not been able to turn us from our path fuelled by heavy costs and hardships. They will not succeed from now on either. We have existed by resisting, we will win by resisting. Greetings and love.”
Selahattin Demirtaş: “The verdict announced by the court had been given by the government and its partners years ago and had been repeatedly announced in rally squares. The heavy penal panel in the court fulfilled only a formal task and read out the verdict given by politics.
We watched the decision on television in our cells. It was not a surprise for me or Selçuk Hoca. We had already anticipated it, we were ready in every aspect. We welcomed it with strength and morale.
While we resist with all our strength for the people, we also get the morale from our people. Let no one worry; our neck will not bend, our knees will not bend. Just as our people stand upright and honourable, we will be worthy of them and we will never let our people down.”
Initiative for Solidarity with Figen Yüksekdağ established
On the day the Kobanê Trial was concluded, the establishment of the Initiative for Solidarity with Figen Yüksekdağ was announced. The initiative announced that it will fight for freedom for the prisoners of the Kobanê trial.