Progressive Lawyers Association Applies to Ministry, Requests Release of Ill Prisoners

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Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) İstanbul Branch Prison Commission has applied to the Ministry of Justice regarding ill prisoners amid COVID-19 outbreak, which has so far claimed the lives of 37 people in Turkey.

Submitting a petition to the Ministry of Justice yesterday (March 23), the Association has requested that "the Ministry take action and swiftly complete necessary formalities for the immediate release of ill arrestees and convicts from prisons due to COVID-19 virus outbreak."

Applications continue

The Prison Commission of the ÇHD İstanbul Branch previously announced on its social media accounts that it would receive applications from the relatives of ill arrestees/convicts and make an application to the Ministry of Justice for their release due to coronavirus outbreak.

Since then, the phones of the association have not stopped ringing, the Prison Commission has announced. Dozens of applications have also been sent to their email addresses, according to the commission.

In the first application submitted to the Ministry, there is a list of 126 ill prisoners. The Commission has noted they are still receiving applications and they will make new applications in following days with new lists.

'Most of them ordinary prisoners, some seriously ill'

Speaking to bianet about the issue, ÇHD İstanbul Branch Chair Gökmen Yeşil has said that amid coronavirus outbreak, prisoners are disadvantaged in terms of crowded wards, food, hygiene and health conditions.

"Health authorities have announced that the ones in advance age groups and suffer from chronic diseases are at a higher risk. Taken together, it is clear that keeping ill and disabled prisoners in prison conditions will have grave consequences", Yeşil has underlined and added:

"Upon the call of our prison commission, we have received hundreds of phone calls and emails. Families of prisoners from almost all prisons across the country got in contact with us, informed us about the condition of their arrested or convicted loved ones behind bars and expressed their concerns. A few exceptions aside, almost all applications are about ordinary prisoners. Some of them have very serious health problems.

"The number of people in prisons has reached a horrible point, with 300 thousand prisoners and 150 thousand personnel. There are also around 1,500 ill and disabled prisoners. Considering the organization of healthcare outside, the ministry is risking the lives of ill and disabled prisoners.

"The number of people in prisons should be swiftly diminished, but in a controlled way. In doing this, ill and disabled prisoners, child prisoners and women prisoners held behind bars with their babies must be primarily released. On the other side, political prisoners must also be released immediately and without any conditions.

"However, even an outbreak risking the healths and lives of millions of people is used as a political maneuver by the government bloc, it is sacrificed for amnesty debates. On top of that, in doing this, they refer to an exception for terror crimes, thereby discriminating against revolutionaries, Kurdish politicians, criminals of thought, journalists and lawyers and excluding them from the regulation on execution."

'All ill and disabled arrestees must be released'

Lawyer Yaprak Türkmen from the ÇHD İstanbul Branch Prison Commission has also stated the following about the issue:

"The application that we made is about only a small part of ill arrestees in prions. We made the application on behalf of the ones who got in contact with us and could make an application. But, independent from our request, all prisoners should be examined in terms of their diseases and all ill and disabled arrestees must be immediately and unconditionally released.

"We, as Prison Commission, has also launched a petition for release of all arrestees and convicts due to coronavirus. This campaign still continues."

Contact and non-contact visits postponed

In a statement yesterday, Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül announced that no one tested positive for coronavirus in prisons.

CLICK - Justice Minister Gül: No Coronavirus Cases in Prisons

"I would like to reiterate that no positive cases have been detected in prisons", Minister Gül has said and added that when new arrestees and convicts are admitted into prisons, they immediately undergo a medical health check and when they show the slightest symptom, they are immediately referred to a hospital without entering the prison.

Gül has also underlined that they thoroughly check whether new arrestees and convicts have been recently abroad and, if so, they are again not admitted into penal institutions and referred to isolation.

The contact and non-contact visits of prisoners (except for their lawyers) were previously postponed to a later date and their right to make a phone call has been increased from one to two instead.

1,333 ill prisoners, 457 in critical condition

As agreed by the Human Rights Association (İHD), Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) and ÇHD, there are 1,333 ill prisoners in prisons across Turkey, 457 of them are seriously ill.

According to the data shared by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), while there were 232 thousand prisoners in Turkey in late 2017, this figure exceeded 270 thousand in the first six months of 2019.

After the US, Turkey ranks second in the rate of incarceration. While there are 655 prisoners per 100 thousand people in the US with its 330-million population, this figure is 318 for Turkey with a populatşon of 82 million. (OECD, May 2019). (AS/SD)

Click here for the full list of 126 ill arrestees or convicts whose names have been notified to the Ministry of Justice (in Turkish)