HDP requests Parliamentary inquiry into ‘psychological torture’ in Tekirdağ Prison

* Photo: HDP

Click to read the article in Turkish

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Diyarbakır MP Remziye Tosun submitted an application to the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission today (January 24) and requested that the violations of rights in the Tekirdağ Prison in northwestern Turkey be investigated.

The petition of Remziye Tosun has recounted the violations of rights expressed by the prisoners of the Tekirdağ No. 2 Type F Prison to their families during their visitations on January 19, 2022.

In her application to the Parliamentary Commission, the HDP MP has listed the following violations based on prisoners' remarks:

'Strip search, battery, arbitrary practices...'

"Transferred from the Kırıkkale Type E Prison to Tekirdağ Type F Prison, Mesut Eren said during his meeting with his family that he was subjected to the torture and ill treatment of wardens. Eren said that he was battered by wardens as he resisted strip search during the transfer.

"Prisoner Mehmet Süleyman Uçakan said that three prisoners transferred to the Tekirdağ No. 2 Type F Prison were strip-searched. Five prisoners, including Uçakan, announced that as of January 19, 2022, they went on a definite and non-rotating hunger strike in order to demand an end to the psychological pressure and unlawful and arbitrary practices.

"Prisoners said that the prison administration commit psychological torture on prisoners, prisoners are subjected to the arbitrary practices of prison wardens and they do not have life safety."

In her petition, HDP Diyarbakır MP Remziye Tosun has underlined that each one of these statements reveals that serious violations of rights occur in the Tekirdağ No. 2 Type F Prison and requested that "the Human Rights Investigation Commission visit the related prison, examine the aforementioned statements on site and the prison administration be asked for information about the related statements in the event that the requested visit to the prison does not take place in a short time."

CLICK - 'Roof leaks, insects crawl in prison's quarantine ward'

The Parliamentary Human Rights Commission prepared reports regarding their visits to the Tarsus and Kayseri Bünyan prisons. They showed that quarantine wards in prisons were in a very bad condition. (AS/SD)