F-Type Isolation Prisons in Turkey

More than 300 Turkish prisoners and prisoners' relatives have been on hunger strike since October 2000, in protest against being permanently locked in either one or three-person cells in Turkey's new "F-style" high security prisons.

As of June 16th, twenty four prisoners and hunger-striking relatives have died, and an estimated sixty prisoners are facing imminent death. At the four F-type prisons that are currently in operation at Edirne, Kandira, Sincan, and Tekirdag prisoners may leave their cells only once a week if a member of their immediate family visits. Otherwise, they are held permanently either in single-person or three-person cells in what has been termed "small group isolation."

These new cell-based facilities are a stark contrast to the large ward-based system that is typical in older Turkish prisons. Medical Effects of Isolation A wide range of medical studies indicate that confinement in solitary or small group isolation can be physically and mentally damaging. Impaired vision and hearing, hallucinations, tinnitus, weakening of the immune system, amenorrhea, premature menopause, depression, anxiety, and aggressive behavior are among the effects documented in studies of prisoners, volunteers, and animals. In the Turkish context, concerns about the direct effects of isolation are augmented by a suspicion that the closed environment of an isolation unit may facilitate torture, ill-treatment, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading abuses.

Torture is a long-standing problem in Turkish police stations and gendarmeries. Most observers, including the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and the U.N. Committee for the Prevention of Torture agree that incommunicado detention - the lack of access to family, independent medical care, and legal counsel - is the single most important factor in the persistence of torture. Turkish prisons do not have a good reputation, but detainees blindfolded and tortured under police interrogation are frequently relieved when a court formally commits them to prison - because only then will they be able to re-establish contact with the outside world. Families, well aware of the history of death and "disappearance" in Turkish police stations, are often similarly relieved when their relative arrives safely in prison. To prisoners and families with such experiences, the introduction of isolation units in prisons looks very much like an indefinite extension of the system of incommunicado detention which has facilitated abuse in police lock-ups. Indeed, accounts by prisoners and their families suggest that, as in police custody, guards in F-type prisons have taken advantage of the closed environment to beat and abuse their charges.

On April 23, guards beat Yunus …zgŸr, on hunger strike since his transfer to Sincan F-type Prison, when he was unable to rise to his feet for roll call, according to his father. He was subsequently hospitalized for several days, apparently for injuries resulting from the beating, and has now been returned to Sincan Prison.

Legal and medical institutions that could document, challenge, and prevent such abuses have had only limited access.