The Constitutional Court has ruled that a prisoner’s right to freedom of expression was violated when he received a disciplinary penalty for remarks made during a phone call with his wife.
The decision concerns Bekir Dönmez, a prisoner at Tarsus Type-T No. 3 Closed Prison in Mersin, southern Turkey, who was penalized for saying “May God punish them, let them deal with their own mess” during a conversation on Sep 7, 2022.
The prison’s disciplinary board launched an investigation and concluded that Dönmez’s words were inappropriate, deciding to ban him from participating in certain activities for one month.
The board interpreted his statements as targeting prison staff. However, a Tarsus penal enforcement court later annulled the punishment, stating that the comments amounted to “grievance” rather than an attack.
The local prosecutor appealed the decision, and the Tarsus 1st Heavy Penal Court overturned the enforcement court’s ruling.
In its final judgment, the Constitutional Court deemed Dönmez’s application admissible and ruled that his freedom of expression had been infringed. The court found that his words did not target prison staff and posed no concrete threat to institutional discipline.
“The statements cited as grounds for the disciplinary sanction were not shown, with specific reasoning, to have disrupted order or security within the penal institution,” the court said in its decision.
The Constitutional Court ordered a retrial to eliminate the consequences of the rights violation and awarded compensation to Dönmez. (AB/VK)
