Gross Rights Violations Continue in F-Type Prisons

Maltreatment, torture and rights violations are still widespread in the so-called high-security F-type prisons, after 11 years of their bloody introduction, Ankara branch of Turkey's Progressive Lawyers' Association (ÇHD) says.

20 lawyers have visited and interviewed inmates at Sincan F-type prisons no 1 and 2, as well as the women's ward. Here are some examples of rights violations from the report:

*Circular 45/1 of the Ministry of Justice, circulated on 22 January 2007 accepts "social contact" as a fundamental right and secures its implementation in prisons. Yet, it has not been implemented in Ankara prisons until November 2011.

* Isolating some prisoners in single cell units that has ventilation area for only one person, and limiting daily ventilation time to 1-4 hours, is a gross rights violation.

* Detainees are forcefully stripped naked upon their arrival at the prison facility. Those who oppose this treatment are condemned to solitary confinement on grounds of "insulting and resisting officials".

* Number of suicides at F-type prisons reveals isolation's detrimental effects as well as that the psychological care is not sufficient. Ill patients can wait for months to get checked by doctors. A doctor is present only for 1,5 days a week at Sincan F-type prison no 1. Journalist Erol Zavar, who has cancer and is kept here, has not been released despite numerous applications.

* Besna Özer, 60, had been denied medical care twice, on grounds that she doesn't speak Turkish. Her demand for diet food has been rejected.

* Although the phone conversions of inmates are recorded at Sincan no 1, they are also required to announce name and phone number of the person they are speaking to at the beginning of the call. Those who oppose the practice are denied the rights to phone calls since January 4th, 2011.

* During cell searches, even photographs and art work are confiscated. ,

* Legally published books and publications can be restricted. Among them are the "Communist Manifesto", Server Tanilli's "History of Civilization" and columnist and writer Ece Temelkuran's books. (AS/EÜ)