LETTER FROM IMPRISONED LAWYERS
Prison administration 'imposes quota on books, tap water' amid pandemic
Click to read the article in Turkish
Attorneys Süleyman Gökten and Özgür Yılmaz have written about rights violations at the Tekirdağ No. 2 Type-F Prison.
The prison administration imposed a "quota" on water and books and they have not been able to meet their basic needs, the attorneys said in a letter to bianet.
Stood trial in the Progressive Lawyers' Association (ÇHD) case, Yılmaz and Gökten were sentenced to 13 years and 6 months and 10 years and 6 months, respectively.
"Cells are very cold"
They listed the following problems in the letter:
* We are prevented from obtaining books.
* Despite being in the period of the pandemic, a quota system was imposed for water. This quota is very insufficient, prisoners can't maintain personal hygiene and environmental hygiene; they say water is cut off in the middle of showering and they can't even get enough water for dishes.
* Cells are very cold, they are not heated properly.
* Prisoners state that they get sick because of cold cells and insufficient cleaning but they are unable to go to the infirmary when they get sick and drugs are given to them after weeks.
* Our cargo packages are delivered once in two months and only one of the [packages] is selected and delivered. The other package gets lost while being returned to senders.
* We applied to the Judgeship of Execution and a relatively positive decision was given by it. But the prison administration is not implementing this decision.
What happened?On a death fast for her right to a fair trial, arrested lawyer Ebru Timtik lost her life in the Dr. Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital in İstanbul on the 238th day of her death fast on August 27, 2020. On September 4, arrested lawyer Aytaç Ünsal, who had also been on a death fast with the same demand, ended his death fast on the condition of being treated by independent physicians after the Court of Cassation released him on probation. On September 16, the 16th Penal Chamber of the Court of Cassation handed down its judgment in the trial of Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) and upheld all prison sentences, except for the ones given to lawyers Barkın Timtik, Selçuk Kozağaçlı and Ezgi Çakır. The Chamber indicated that there was no ground to give a judgment about lawyer Ebru Timtik as she had lost her life on a death fast. The execution of lawyer Aytaç Ünsal's sentence will be deferred until his treatment ends. On December 10, 2020, the Ministry of Interior announced that lawyer Aytaç Ünsal had been "caught with three migrant smugglers while trying to flee abroad from Edirne," a northwestern province of Turkey bordering Greece. Ünsal was detained with three others and arrested on December 11. |
(AS/VK)