HDP applies to Parliamentary Human Rights Commission for women prisoners

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) İzmir MP Serpil Kemalbay has applied to the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission and requested that the violations of rights against women prisoners be investigated.

In her Parliamentary inquiry, the MP has cited the violations of rights in prisons in İzmir, İstanbul, Manisa and Kocaeli as an example.

Kemalbay has recounted the following incidents in brief:

Strip search, threats, insults...

"There is an allegation of violence, including sexual assault, against Garibe Gezer in the Kandıra No. 1 Type F Penal Institution on May 24.

"In the Bandırma Type T No. 2 Prison; it is alleged that 'the oral searches' carried out on prisoners before being taken to the sick room or hospital are done by hand by soldiers and wardens.

"In the Bakırköy Women's Prison; it is said that especially the prisoners who have been recently transferred to the prison are subjected to forced strip search and to the women wardens' threats of 'We will call the male wardens' in the event that they object to strip search.

"The arrested and convicted people who had been transferred from the Siirt Type E Closed Penal Institution to the Batman Type T Closed Penal Institution were subjected to forced strip search before entering the prison; the prisoners who did not accept this imposition were battered, they were subjected to insults by wardens and their clothes were forcibly removed.

"In the Manisa Type T Closed Prison; it is indicated that the prisoners who rejected being counted on foot in the ward were dragged to a dark room by wardens and battered there; the director of the prison threatened them by saying, 'I will kill you if necessary' and the prisoners, with several marks of battery on their bodies, have not been properly treated.

"Bengisu Ravza Demirel, arrested in İzmir Women's Closed Prison, faced an attempt to make her meet 3 intelligence police officers by being told, 'Your lawyer is here, you are going to the lawyer's visitation' on October 18; the director of the prison on duty said on October 25 that 'they were intelligence police officers and they let them in upon the order of the prosecutor.'

Complaints about torture, ill treatment

Further in her Parliamentary inquiry, HDP's Serpil Kemalbay has also referred to the Justice Ministry's response to a Parliamentary question. In its response dated June 19, 2020, the Ministry reportedly announced that 396 prisoners had submitted complaints about torture and other forms of ill treatment in the one-year period starting from October 1, 2019.

As indicated by Serpil Kemalbay, the Human Rights Association (İHD) İzmir Branch Prison Commission's report also showed that at least 102 violations of rights had been documented in prisons in the Aegean region of Turkey in the first four months of this year.

Accordingly, against the backdrop of these violations, HDP İzmir MP Kemalbay has requested that the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission "meet with the relevant units in the face of these arbitrary practices, take solution-based steps, hold an emergency meeting on this specific issue and take the necessary initiatives" within this framework. (EMK/SD)