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Hanife Gümüş, the mother of a political prisoner, who has been jailed for 23 years, talked to Jin News regarding the oppression her son has been facing in Turkish prisons, defining it to be “on the level of torture.”
The violations of rights that prisoners face in Turkey’s prisons has significantly increased after the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Human Rights Association (IHD) of Turkey. Each day the prisoners families wake up to hear of yet more mistreatment or punishments their children are subjected to. Each day it’s getting worse.
Hanife Gümüş is one of those parents, whose door was knocked one day by representatives of Turkish state authorities demanding a “fee” to be paid for the “expenses” of their jailed son.
Turkish states demands 6,000 TRY tax from the prisoner
Mehmet Gümüş is a political prisoner in Bandırma Prison in Turkey’s Balıkesir province. He has been imprisoned for 23 years and the Turkish state authorities have totalled up a debt of 6,000 Turkish Lira for him to pay as a tax to the state.
The prisoner is asked to pay a tax for his basic needs of food and water in the prison. His mother Hanife Gümüş reacted to this debt asked by the Turkish authorities and defined this as a symbol of the “hostile approach” of the state towards the prisoners.
“I have not heard anything from my son for 9 months”
“All the prisoners are sick, there is already a risk of pandemic. The pandemic and the hunger strikes already constitute a huge health risk for our children. Prisoners are neither given magazines nor books,” she explalined regarding the harsh circumstances her son and other prisoners face in the prison already.
“I am calling out to the Ministry of Justice (of Turkey). Listen to the voice of the demands of our children. We did not find our children on the street. We raised them under difficult conditions in poverty,” she said.
“My son has been kept in prison for 23 years, and I have not heard from him for 9 months!’’ she said.
