IHD To Minister: End Isolation in Prisons
The letter said the Minister needed to show effort to end the controversial treatment of prisoners in F-type holdings and to be in dialogue with civilian society organizations and advocates of human rights.
"A dialogue is an important step to stop the deaths" it said. "Otherwise you will be the only one responsible for every death and every type of breach of human rights in prisons".
The IHD letter comes in the wake of the possible death of three more protestors of F-type prisons, in addition to the 122 convicts that have already died and the maiming of some 600 others who have been crippled for life in hunger strikes to protest the conditions as well as retaliatory security operations, some of which have led to international criticism.
Of particular importance to human rights activists is the "isolation" of captives in these compounds, sometimes for years, where they are held in poor conditions in one-man cells with little or no outside contact.
"This is a second punishment" argued IHD Istanbul Branch chair HurriyetSener noting that in a state of law only courts passed out punishment. "But to worsen conditions in prisons, methods of isolation and torture, these constitute a second punishment for the convicts" she said.
"This second punishment is against human rights and our efforts focus to end such practices".
The IHD letter warned Minister Cicek that he and the Ankara government may be at the brink of facing at least three more deaths of those in protest of the F-type conditions in addition to those that have already taken place.
It said hunger strikers Sevgi Saymaz at the Usak Covered Prison, Gulcan Goruroglu in her house in Istanbul and attorney Behic Asci were in the critical stage of their death strikes which it said was "at the limit of death". (TK/II/YE)