Strip Searching Women Visitors to Prison Arouses Anger

Women visitors are strip-searched at Tire Prison. Their external body opening, including their sexual organs, are inspected closely. Contemporary Jurists Association says this is illegal.

Tolga Korkut

Strip Searching Women Visitors to Prison Arouses Anger

Upon Mehmet Desde’s complaint in Tire B Type Closed Prison, the prosecutor started an investigation about strip searching women visitors; Desde’s statement was taken.

According to Desde’s statement, Derya Desde said on July 4, during her visit, that she and the other women visitors were strip-searched by female police officers and their sexual organs were inspected carefully.

Desde’s lawyer Çetin Bingölbalı said they were planning to file a criminal complaint after they took the statements of the other women visitors who were treated similarly.

Contemporary Jurists Association (ÇHD) will start the legal process

ÇHD’s Izmir branch, who were contacted by Desde’s family, will take the matter to Izmir Human Rights Provincial Committee and the Ministry of Justice.

Züheyla Kılıç, a lawyer from the association, told Bianet that the ÇHD was planning to demand punishment of those responsible for the incident and the removal of the practice.

Kılıç: They cannot do “fine search” there

According to Kılıç, although there is a kind of search procedure that includes the external openings of the body, what happened on July 4 is illegal.

“Article 86 of the Penal Code states that individuals can be searched using an X-ray machine or by hands, but the same article also adds that the searches must not violate human dignity.”

Kılıç said the “fine search” could be done only upon suspicion and with permission from a judge and even then the officers were to make use of detector and x-ray technologies. She also added that the person who was supposed to go through fine search, for example a smuggler suspected of having placed drugs in his/her body, should be taken to a police station; it could not be done in the prison entrance.

“It is a problem that there are no female guardians”

Emphasizing that the search on July 4 was only done to the women visitors, Kılıç said, “Those responsible for these illegal searches should be punished for misconduct.”

However, she also indicated that not having female guardians in the prisons was the principal cause behind this human rights violation.

“This is why they ask for female police officers from the nearest available station and these officers may not know how to search a visitor. It seems that in this particular case they did a “fine search.” This could have been done only with prosecutor’s directive. (TK/EZÖ/TB)