Under the political Islamist Erdoğan regime, which has been ruling Turkey since 2002, the number of prisons reached the highest level in history. With Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) abandoning libertarian discourse and policies and turning to one-man rule in the country, it is striking that prison populations have also increased. The prisons were filled with political prisoners far exceeding their current capacity especially after the failed coup attempt in 2015, with the crackdown carried out against the members of the Gülen movement, an international, voluntary-based education and dialogue community, which the Turkish government designated as a terror organization after the corruption allegations in 2013.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle. Erdoğan dismissed the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government. He initiated a massive witch hunt against the members of the movement, also known as Hizmet, all across the country and even the world. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The Turkish Statistical Institute’s (TurkStat) numbers demonstrate that the number of detainees and convicts, which was 59,429 in 2002, increased approximately fivefold in 2019. As detailed in Table 1, there were 56,000 detainees and convicts in prisons in 1970, while in 1972 the number was 64,889. The number of detainees and convicts, which was 70,172 in 1980, when the 12 September Military Coup took place, increased to 79,786 in 1981. If it is taken into account that the prison population remained below 80,000 even after the 1980 coup, which took place after intense internal conflicts, the awfulness of the current situation of the prisons will be more clearly comprehended.
To put it more concretely, with respect to Turkey’s population in 1980-81, 1,813 out of every 1 million people were in prison. Nevertheless, as of today, 2,625 people out of every 1 million are living behind bars.
According to the data of the Ministry of Justice the total number of all detainees and convicts in Turkish prisons was 287,094 as of the end of June 2021. Another set of data, announced by the Ministry of Justice as of April 2021, shows that there are a total of 371 penal institutions in Turkey and the capacity of these institutions is 250,576 people, indicating an approximate figure of 15 percent overcapacity that causes prison wards to be overpacked for the most part. Of these prisons, 264 are closed prisons, 80 are independent open prisons, 4 are children’s education centers, 9 are closed for women, 7 are for women and 7 are closed for children.
The Turkish state doesn’t pay attention to objections to violations of rights in prisons that house detainees/convicts above their capacity. In a way that can be interpreted as an indication of the politicization of the judiciary in Turkey, individual applications to the Constitutional Court (AYM) cannot yield legal and humanitarian results. For instance, Mehmet Hanefi Baki, who was detained in Osmaniye No. 1 T-Type Closed Prison, made an individual application to the AYM after his formal complaints that the A-38 ward where he was detained housed more detainees than its capacity were not heeded. Baki claimed that the ban on ill-treatment was violated because he was kept in a crowded room in the Penitentiary Institution. The prison administration’s defense was to say that “The average number of rooms A-38 is 25, the per capita usage area is 4.25 square meters, the number of bunk beds allocated for sleeping and resting in the ward is 16, and about nine detainees had to sleep on floor beds due to overcapacity.” Although the administration admitted that the ward was hosting detainees beyond its capacity, the Constitutional Court did not give a decision of violation of rights in the hearing dated 27 July 2018.
There is no official data on how many of them are sick with chronic and severe diseases or how many inmates are too old to stay in prisons. However, there is some data that certain civil society organizations have mustered through their own research. For example, the Human Rights Association (İHD), one of the associations that carries out the most serious and comprehensive studies on the victimization of prisoners, says that 1,605 patients, 604 of whom are seriously ill, are fighting for their lives in prisons across Turkey. The already very negative approach and indifference towards sick and old prisoners became much more severe, especially during the new type of coronavirus epidemic called COVID 19, which affected the whole world throughout 2020 and most of 2021. A report launched by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) showed that the number of prisoners who lost their lives in prisons between 2002 and 2018 was 3,432. A relatively limited list, compiled from media coverage of deaths of prisoners, can be found in Table 3 at the end of this report.
Deputy Gergerlioğlu, who was at the forefront of the fight against the unlawfulness of the political power in general to suppress the opposition, and especially against the injustices in prisons, and who himself was imprisoned by the Erdoğan regime for this cause in 2021, was also at the forefront of creating public opinion about the suffering of sick prisoners. According to him, the deaths occurred due to the failure of timely release of sick convicts. “The deaths are murders. The perpetrator is political power, state institutions that share evil, and the Ministry of Justice itself,” he said.
Gergerlioğlu said that, “Prison administrations, judiciary organs, deputies, Ministry of Justice officials and doctors of some hospitals treat prisoners ‘according to the type of crime.’ ” The following words of the deputy reveal the picture with all its clarity: “People are dying in plain sight. This shows that there is no human value. Detainees are not released due to political considerations. The situation of sick prisoners is left to the discretion of the prison managers and no one questions them. Courts do not release people despite medical reports. We tell the Ministry, we speak in the Parliament, we convey it to the prison administrations, we call the judges and prosecutors, but it is as if there is a wall in front of us. This wall is the state with all its institutions. We see the most concrete countenance of the state, which never takes a step back, never regrets, and says ‘it can happen’ even in the face of a most painful event. We see a great injustice.”
An extensive report by the Platform for Peace and Justice demonstrated how far the Turkish prisons are from meeting the internationally accepted standards to accommodate detainees and prisoners. The report stated: “It has been observed that the facilities in 72 out of 80 prisons are inadequate. To name a few examples: the gym in the Karabuk Prison is used as a ward and there are only 3 shower facilities and 3 toilets in a ward where 100 detainees are staying together. In the women’s section of the Tarsus Prison, 70 women are de- tained in a ward for 17 people, and in the men’s section, 60 detainees are staying in a ward for 26 people. In the Düzce Prison, 25 people are detained in a ward for 8 people; in the Bursa TYPE H Prison, 18 detain- ees are staying in a ward for 8 people; in the Bandirma Type T Prison, 42 detainees are staying in a ward for 22 people, in the Izmir Aliaga Closed Prison, 28 detainees are staying in a ward for 12 people; in the Manisa Type T Closed Prison, 30 detainees are staying in a ward for 14 people; in the Osmaniye Type E T Closed Prison, 24 people are detained in a ward for 10 people; 42 detainees are staying in a ward for 15 people in the Burdur Type E Closed Prison; …while in the Manisa Type E Closed Prison for women, in a space of 33 square meters, 30 inmates are being detained, which means only 1 square meter is allowed per person. Since the number of toilets and shower facilities were built for the ideal capacity of the prisons and because the number of detainees staying in one ward is well over that capacity, every 25-30 detainees have to share 1 toilet and 1 shower and this causes long queues. Taking into consideration the limited availability of hot water as well, the opportunity for taking a shower is very limited. For instance, in some prisons, such as the Bandırma Type T Prison, each detainee can only take a shower once a week, and for only 5 minutes. In prisons with poor conditions, due to the shortage of beds, some detainees have to sleep on bedding laid out on the floor.”
Prisons under such poor conditions are particularly hard to tackle for prisoners who are already struggling with the frailties of various health problems and old age.
Sick and Elderly Political Prisoners IN ERDOGAN’S TURKEY – Special Report
