Fruit and Vegetable Prices Change Every Day in Prisons

Photo: Haluk Kalafat / bianet

Click to read the article in Turkish

Inmate Murat Kaymaz from the Van Prison said that accessing fruits and vegetables in the prison became difficult in a letter he sent to bianet.

"Prices of the foods and vegetables sold by the prison administration change every week. They don't bring the types of fruits we request, saying they are 'out of stock'. It is not possible to know which fruits and vegetables will be sold. Because they don't make any announcements. There is arbitrariness."

"We couldn't serve candies to our families on Eid"

Murat Kaymaz told in his letter that they cannot even serve candies to their families on holidays:

"Arrestees and convicts are not permitted to bring food and drinks with them when they meet their families. They say 'Order from the canteen'. The inmates were not even permitted to serve candies to their families on Eid al Adha (Sacrifice Feast).

"We couldn't deliver the letters to you we wrote months ago"

The letter that has reached to us is dated September 2018. It reached us six months after being written.

Kaymaz also told in his letter that the letters they previously wrote did not reach bianet as well.

"We try to tell you the systematic rights violations we experience because we were not able to deliver the letters to you that we wrote months ago. Even the courts accept to deliver the letters, they delay the deliveries."

Kaymaz also wrote a letter to us last month. The prison administration decided to deliver it "after scratching out the objectionable parts". The letter has yet to reach us.

Inmate Yusuf Kenan Dinçer from the Van Type F Prison sent a letter to bianet on October 28, 2018. Because it was not delivered on the ground of "being objectionable," he sent another letter, saying, "I can't write about the rights violations."

He wrote the following in his letter:

"We've been trying to contact you via our letters for months but it is not possible because almost none of the letters we write to journalists and MPs are delivered. They are seized and banned without any justification.

"Lastly, the letters we spoke about rights violations in September were found 'inconvenient' as well. I am sending you the decision about that. They cited the sections which they saw as 'inconvenient' in our letter. We could see neither a threat nor an insult in those lines. There was no lie in those lines and in the rest of the six pages of our letter. But you can also predict that the issue is not that." (AS/VK)