Rights advocates, lawyers in Adana call for an end to ‘mouth search’ in prison

* Photo: MA

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Rights and law organizations called for an end to "mouth search" in the Kürkçüler Type F Closed Prison in Turkey's southern Adana province.

The Adana Bar Association and the Adana branches of the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Progressive Lawyers' Association (ÇHD) held a press statement yesterday (March 3) and underlined that the related practice is "arbitrary and against the regulations".

CLICK - Ill prisoner not referred to hospital as he rejects 'mouth search'

It was previously reported by bianet that chronically ill prisoner Fatih Özgür Aydın could not access his right to healthcare and treatment as he did not accept the "mouth search" before being referred to the hospital. His mother has filed a criminal complaint about the practice by also citing the COVID-19 pandemic and its risks for chronically ill people.

'Torture is still the major problem'

As reported by Mezopotamya Agency (MA), the groups made a press statement in front of the prison yesterday.

Addressing the reporters, Adana Bar Association Chair and lawyer Semih Gökaya said that "mouth search", a type of body cavity search, should be stopped and ill prisoners should be referred to hospital.

ÇHD 2nd Chair Ümit Büyükdağ underlined that there are arbitrary practices in prison and the right to life of prisoners are openly violated.

Taking the floor afterwards, İHD Adana Branch Chair Yakup Ataş indicated that even though the Constitution and the universal law, which Turkey is a part of, absolutely forbid them, torture, maltreatment and degrading treatment are still Turkey's major human rights problems in 2022.

Right to treatment, healthcare hindered

Ataş recalled that one of these practices has been the case in the Adana Kürkçüler Type F Closed Prison for a long time and noted that prisoners are forced to undergo "mouth search" in prison since August 2021 and the prisoners who do not accept this practice are prevented from exercising their rights to medical treatment and access healthcare services:

"After prisoners leave their wards, they are faced with four separate body searches, searches with detectors and X-Ray searches until they are received by the Gendarmerie personnel; however, in spite of this, the Gendarmerie personnel want to search inside prisoners' mouths.

"Prisoners do not accept this practice since they define it as arbitrary and degrading as it is done by gendarmerie personnel and even though it is not suspected that they have something in their mouths.

"When prisoners do not accept the 'mouth search', minutes are taken down against them by indicating that 'the prisoner does not accept the search', and prisoners are not referred to the hospital."

Dozens of ill prisoners

Referring to the fact that "mouth search" is carried out by the gendarmerie even though there is not serious or reasonable suspicion makes this practice extremely arbitrary, Ataş added the following:

"There are dozens of ill prisoners in the Adana Kürkçüler Prison, suffering from cardiac diseases, cancer, tumors, embolism, ulcer, etc. For this reason, 'mouth search' is a serious obstacle to all prisoners' right to healthcare and treatment, especially that of ill prisoners, and it makes us lawyers concerned about seriously ill prisoners' right to life."

Lawyers called on the authorities to end this practice. (AS/SD)