Thirteen prisoners have died in prisons in Turkey since the beginning of 2023, six of them in suspicious circumstances, the country’s Human Rights Association (İHD) announced on Saturday.
Of the 11 male and two female prisoners who have died in prisons in Turkey since the beginning of 2023, four died due to illness and three of gunshot wounds, while the remainder died in suspicious circumstances.
“We demand an end to practices of torture and ill-treatment in prisons, we demand transparent investigation processes against officials who violate the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, and we demand abandonment of the policy of impunity,” said Nuray Çevirmen, co-spokesperson of the İHD’s Central Prisons Commission. The association also called for the opening up of penal institutions to the supervision of non-governmental and relevant professional organisations.
Three prisoners were killed by security forces when a riot broke out in Hatay T-Type Closed Prison in the earthquake-stricken province, after the 6 February earthquakes that devastated the southeast of the country.
According to the family of Tabip Alan, one of the prisoners killed, they did not hear from Alan for three days after the riot broke out. On the afternoon of 9 February, the family were called to collect his body from Adana Forensic Medicine Institute. They told the İHD that his hands were cuffed behind his back, his ribs were broken, he had a bruise above his eye, a broken arm, boot marks on his face and a bullet wound in his breast. Moreover, no-one has contacted the family to this day or given them any information as to whether or not there is any investigation into the incident.
Çevirmen said that the family of Duygu Koral (26), a prisoner who died in suspicious circumstances in Kandıra F-Type Closed Prison in northwest Turkey, reported that she had marks of beatings and cuts on her body and that there had been massive blood loss from the back of her head.
Recalling that the political prisoner Garibe Gezer had died in the same prison and also under suspicious circumstances, İHD Chair Eren Keskin pointed out that despite footage of Gezer being subjected to violence, a court had ruled that there were no grounds to proceed in her case, and said that the association was now waiting for the autopsy report.
The İHD stated that they will continue to follow cases of suspicious deaths in prisons.
