Turkish human rights advocates have criticized prison authorities for arbitrarily imposing solitary confinement as a punishment for inmates, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported, citing the Bianet news website.
In a statement on Tuesday members of the Human Rights Association (IHD) said maximum security prisons in Turkey were continuing to commit rights violations, including imposing solitary confinement.
Traditionally, inmates who have been sentenced to aggravated life are put in solitary cells; however, an increasing number of political prisoners have been confined in these cells in recent years as well. According to the law, inmates can only be put in solitary confinement if they vandalize prison property, attempt to escape, are involved in an uprising or inflict injury on another person.
According to human rights advocates, prisons are in violation of the law for arbitrarily imposing solitary confinement and restricting inmates’ access to newspapers, television and books. Furthermore, prisoners were only allowed an hour in the yard, spending the rest of the day in their cells.
In some cases, critically sick prisoners are also put in solitary confinement despite needing round-the-clock medical care.
In previous statements, human rights advocates have said the number of prisoners in solitary cells reaches into the thousands, a number that drastically increased after the government declared a state of emergency following a July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
Although the law stipulates that an inmate can only be held in a solitary cell for a maximum of 20 days, there are inmates in solitary cells who have been there for years.
These cells are notorious for their unsanitary conditions, and several inmates in the last few years have either become very sick in these cells or died. According to pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, inmates in solitary cells are “under unprecedented stress.”
