İHD: Policies Shouldn't be Developed over Lives

Photo: MA

Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish

The Human Rights Association (İHD) İstanbul Branch has sent postcards to ill prisoners for solidarity on the occasion of the December 10 - 17 Human Rights Week.

Members of the İHD Committee for Prisons sent postcards to the prisoners who are in prisons in Turkey's northwestern Marmara Region and opened a banner that read, "December 10-17 Human Rights Week - Ill prisoner should be released."

'We won't give up'

Hatice Onaran, a member of the İHD Committee for Prisons, told bianet after the event that there are 1,333 ill prisoners throughout Turkey, with the condition of 500 of them being serious.

"In the human rights week, our aim was to tell ill prisoners who have been subjected to rights violations, violence and torture and express these all year long that during Human Rights Week all year long that 'We hear you, we've heard you all this time and we've been trying to make your voice heard.'

"As a result, we wanted to celebrate such a day with ill prisoners, and we turned our faces to sick prisoners as we do every year. Here, I want to express that we will never stop fighting and making their voice heard.

"Because the living conditions in Type-F prisons are very severe. Very simple illnesses caused by the psychological and objective conditions that are caused by isolation can lead to severe situations afterwards. Or ill prisoners may experience tremendous difficulties because of not being taken to treatment or being prevented from receiving treatment."

'There are 1,333 ill prisoners'

Onaran said that when the İHD begin recording the number of ill prisoners in 2005, there were about 50 people on the list. According to the association's last report, it is now 1,333, she added.

"But in the intervening period, this number has increased every year due to the severe problems caused by Type-F prisons or the conditions of isolation. These illnesses exist because of isolation and because they constantly fight against not being regarded as humans.

"We don't want the development of policies over lives. We want the ill prisoners who are in serious condition to be released unconditionally." (HA/VK)