'Maltreatment, torture in Marmara Region's prisons doubled in a year'

Photo: İHD İstanbul

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The Prisons Commission of the Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Branch has released a report on rights violations in prisons in Turkey's northwestern Marmara Region.

The report is based on applications to the association from the region's prisons, the information obtained from prison visits by the association's lawyers and news in the media.

The commission received 326 applications from 39 prisons throughout 2021.

The limitations on prisoners' access to the association indicate that the extent of the problems may be well beyond what is documented in the report, according to the İHD.

Torture and maltreatment

Compared to the association's 2020 report, there was a serious increase in rights violations in 2021despite a decreased number of applications to the association.

In 2020, the İHD found 4,805 rights violations in 450 applications, whereas it found 6,222 violations in 326 applications.

There were 810 violations of right to access to healthcare while it increased to 1,013 in 2021, the report showed.

The number of cases of maltreatment, battery and torture doubled in a year to 1,605.

Discrimination and strip search

"With the increase in obstacles to the right to access to healthcare, violations of the right to life also increased. A significant majority of prisoners who lost their lives were ill prisoners," noted the İHD.

"Most of the violations of right to life throughout the year happened while prisoners were confined to single-person cells, suspicious deaths were announced as suicide and the first thing to do in the investigations opened into these incidents was to impose a confidentiality order on these files."

Practices such as physical attacks, threats, strip search, cell raids, torture and racist and discriminatory behavior by correction officers and police officers who joined them increased in 2021, the association further noted.

"One of the most common problems in this period was the practice of strip search and attempts to look into the mouths of prisoners during searches.

"Prisoners who reject strip search were tortured and their clothes were forcibly taken off. Prisoners were asked to kneel, and those who did not accept this were subjected to torture.

"Moreover, lawsuits were filed against prisoners for resisting officers while cases were closed in complaints by prisoners." (AS/VK)