Another Women Forced To A Strip Search During Prison Visit

Gülnaz Türkmen has rendered at the press conference given by the Human Rights Association (İHD) how she was strip searched at the Torbalı Prison when she was visiting her son on September 4. She was searched by a female police officer.

When she refused the procedure, she was told that she would not be able to see her son, if she did not agree with the strip search.

“Do you have a witness?”

When Türkmen was told by the other visitors this was the usual procedure, she went to the Office of the Torbalı Prosecutor to file a complaint.

However she was asked if she had a witness, but the search procedure requires that the visitor is strip searched in a room by a single officer.

“If they really want witnesses, then they can let the human rights representatives and the law professionals witness the procedure.”

İHD’s Izmir branch demands that the incident is investigated. It has also repeated its previous demand that the prisons should be opened to the human rights organizations in order to stop the violations.

“They cannot have a search procedure that violates human dignity”

While ago, Derya Desde had experienced a similar incident while visiting her brother Mehmet Desde in the Tire Prison.

Züheyla Kılıç, lawyer from the Contemporary Jurists Association (ÇHD), with whom bianet had met previously about a similar incident, had said, “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.” (TK/EÜ/TB)