28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
Issue No.514
|
Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001 Issue No.514 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Turkey's death cells
At least 26 prisoners were killed and over 130 injured last week as Turkish security forces raided prisons across the country to put an end to a series of hunger strikes by left-wing inmates. The prisoners have been protesting against government plans to move them to new prisons with smaller cells where they claimed they would be more vulnerable to human rights abuses.
The operation was launched on 19 December after a pledge by Justice Minister Sami Turk to suspend the introduction of the new system, known as F-type cells, failed to persuade the inmates to abandon their hunger strike. At exactly five o'clock in the morning, gendarmes staged synchronised raids on 20 prisons in what, ironically given its bloody outcome, was called Operation Return to Life. But they met with heavy resistance, particularly in the Istanbul prisons of Bayrampasa and Umraniye, where the inmates resisted for four days, using home-made weapons.
By Saturday, as the last of the inmates surrendered, the death toll stood at two gendarmes and 26 inmates killed and over 130 injured. Sixteen of the inmates had set themselves on fire. Turkish television replayed recordings of alleged telephone conversations in which the leaders of organisations appeared to order selected inmates to douse themselves in petrol and set themselves alight. But the same television stations also showed gendarmes striking and kicking inmates as they dragged them from the smouldering ruins of the prisons. Turkish riot police charged peaceful demonstrations by relatives and supporters of the inmates, indiscriminately lashing out with their nightsticks at both demonstrators and passers-by, regardless of age or sex.
The horrifying images have not only further blackened Turkey's already miserable international image on human rights but also destroyed what little faith Turks had in their justice system. It is common knowledge that the prison system has long been riddled with corruption and violence. In some jails, imprisoned Mafia godfathers have become more powerful than their warders, free to continue to run their operations and entertain mistresses in luxuriously furnished cells. The large dormitory cells occupied by members of militant left-wing organisations have become indoctrination and training centres off limits to prison staff. In the wake of last week's operations, government officials admitted that security personnel were now able to enter some of the dormitories for the first time since the early 1990s.
"These operations have put an end to a national disgrace," declared Interior Minister Sadettin Tantan. But he was quick to indicate where he believed the real responsibility lay. "The Interior Ministry is only responsible for security outside the prison walls. What has been happening inside is the responsibility of the Justice Ministry."
It is not clear why the authorities waited until the hunger strikes had entered their ninth week before trying to intervene. In 1996 12 hunger strikers from the same left-wing organisations died before the government gave in to their demands for better conditions, a victory which undoubtedly encouraged the organisations to launch this year's protests against the F-type cells.
But over the past week the Turkish government has not only helped the extremist organisations create another series of martyrs but has also ensured that no one will ever again trust its promises. In mid-December Justice Minister Sami Turk told the hunger strikers he was suspending the introduction of the F-type cells pending an exhaustive review of the entire system. But last week he ordered the transfer of inmates from the prisons raided by the gendarmerie directly to F-type prisons.
Perhaps even more alarmingly, last Thursday the Turkish parliament passed an amnesty bill that freed approximately 35,000 of the country's 72,000 prison population. The bill was widely unpopular with the Turkish public. It only covered crimes committed before 23 April 1999 and, by reducing sentences for crimes against individuals by 10 years, freed hundreds of murderers, many of whom had served only four to five years. But it left those convicted of many non-violent crimes, such as infringements of Turkey's draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, behind bars.
The bill had been vetoed once by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. But under the Turkish constitution, the president cannot veto a bill which has twice been passed by parliament. Surprisingly, Sezer also declined to refer the amnesty to the Constitutional Court, despite widespread agreement that it would be annulled for violating the constitutional provision that all citizens are equal before the law.
Government officials insist that an amnesty was the only way to solve the problem of overcrowding in Turkish jails. Even the opposition Islamists supported the bill as it spared the movement's former leader Necmettin Erbakan from a one-year jail term for allegedly inciting religious strife.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
