Is Prison’s Duty to Play ‘Ölürüm Türkiyem’* for Hours?

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Republican People’s Party (CHP) Malatya MP Veli Ağbaba has submitted parliamentary motion as to the right violations at Tekirdağ Prison.

Naked body search, battering…

In the motion, following questions are requested to be replied by Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ:

- Are the allegations true that belongings of inmates who are transferred to Tekirdağ Prison from other prisons disappear or their belongings are not delivered to them?

- What are the reasons for seizing inmates’ books and magazines and preventing them from accessing newspapers?

- Is imposing naked body search, which is an obvious human right violation on everyone and battering those who resist a precaution that your Ministry has taken or is it the prison’s own initiative?

- Is your Ministry carrying out any research into the allegations that the inmates are denied to enter the infirmary so they cannot have medical report?

- Have you looked into the allegations that ‘Ölürüm Türkiyem’ song is being played through speakers of Tekirdağ Prison and when it meets reaction, announcements as ‘You will shout as long live the Republic of Turkey’?

- Is playing song through speakers among the duties of prison administration?

- Are the allegations that the inmates stay as six in 3-person cells and are given three knives and forks, thus the inmates eat their food in turns? Are the prisons short on knife and fork?

- Have you looked into the allegations that the petitions written by the inmates are not received by the prison administration and the petitions written to be submitted to the TBMM (Grand National Assembly of Turkey) Human Rights Commission are being prevented from being delivered? (AS/TK)

* Ölürüm Türkiyem (I die for you my Turkey) is a song used in prisons with the purpose of torture following September 12, 1980 coup.