Prisoners probed for protesting suspicious death of Garibe Gezer in prison

Click to read the article in Turkish

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Meral Danış-Beştaş addressed the General Assembly of the Parliament during the session on the 2022 budgets of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ministry of Foreign Affairs today (December 13).

Recalling that prisoner Garibe Gezer lost her life in the Kandıra Prison on the day when the budget of the Justice Ministry was discussed, Danış-Beştaş protested that "the Justice Minister [Abdulhamit Gül] unfortunately did not utter a single sentence" about the incident.

"We requested that an investigation be launched and that the responsible persons be removed from office," Meral Danış-Beştaş noted, adding that "then, in the late evening hours, the [ruling] AKP Group Deputy Chair said that an investigation was launched."

Sharing information about the phone calls between the jailed women politicians held in the Kandıra Prison in Turkey's western Kocaeli province, where Garibe Gezer lost her life, and their families, HDP's Danış-Beştaş said, "Today, Gültan Kışanak, Figen Yüksekdağ, Gülser Yıldırım and dozens of our friends who are held captives in the Kandıra Prison talked to their families on the phone. They said that they protested the death of Garibe Gezer by applauding in protest. A disciplinary investigation has been launched against our friends in less than 24 hours."

"An investigation has been launched against the ones who protested it," emphasized Danış-Beştaş, briefly adding the following:

The ones who commit murders, who drive [people] to suicide, who torture [people] are faced with impunity, they are rewarded. The ones who stand up against them, the ones who protest them are investigated. We want an explanation from the ruling group. They are still playing ostrich about Garibe Gezer. We will never stay silent about this issue.

What happened?

Systematically tortured and sexually assaulted in the Kandıra No. 1 Type F High Security Prison in western Turkey, prisoner Garibe Gezer suspiciously lost her life. Informing her family about her death, the prison administration alleged that Gezer had taken her own life.

Gezer's lawyer and Human Rights Association (İHD) Co-Chair Eren Keskin announced Gezer's passing on her Twitter account:

"We have just been informed that our client Garibe Gezer committed suicide in Kandıra prison. She was a victim of torture.

"She was given a penalty of solitary confinement. The prison director called her elder sister and we have unfortunately lost our Garibe. Lawyer Jiyan Tosun and lawyer Jiyan Kara are now going to her."

Further in her message, lawyer Eren Keskin noted that Garibe Gezer was in solitary confinement as a disciplinary punishment and asked, "How could a person in a cell hang herself? Shame on you!"

Eren Keskin later wrote that the lawyers went to Kandıra Prison to take the camera footage showing Garibe Gezer's moment of death and to meet the prison administration. However, Gezer's deceased body had been taken to the Kocaeli Forensic Medicine Institution in the meantime and an autopsy was carried out without waiting for the lawyers to arrive. The cause of death had not been indicated in the preliminary autopsy report.

Gezer was laid to rest in Mardin's Dargeçit in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast on December 10, 2021. (EMK/SD)