HDP women call for an end to Turkey’s enemy criminal law

The women from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) faction spoke at a press conference in the parliament in Ankara about the unexplained death of Garibe Gezer in the maximum security prison Kandira and the state of health of the imprisoned Kurdish politician Aysel Tuğluk.

Speaking on behalf of the women parliamentarians, Ayşe Acar Başaran, spokesperson for the HDP Women’s Council, said: “We have been expressing for a long time that the situation in prisons in Turkey is comparable to the 1980s and is getting worse. Every day prisoners are subjected to inhumane treatment. Because the government ignores our statements, Garibe Gezer has died under suspicious circumstances. Garibe Gezer was transferred to a solitary cell in Kayseri-Bünyan prison on 15 March. She objected to this. She was then illegally transferred to Kandira. After a 22-day solitary confinement, she wanted to be transferred to a three-person cell. None of her requests were accepted and she continued to be held in a single cell. When she objected, she was locked in a padded cell. These padded cells are known from the Diyarbakir torture prison from the 1980s and are still used today.”

“Garibe Gezer wrote to us”

The MP went on to say that Garibe Gezer had been tortured, abused and subjected to sexual violence by male and female guards on 24 May. She made the violence she had experienced public and persistently made further requests to be transferred to a collective cell. None of these requests were processed. On 7 June, she attempted to set fire to her cell, before which she had attempted suicide.

“She wrote a letter to us as MPs about the abuse she had experienced. Only a part of it reached us. We have asked several parliamentary questions and raised the issue in parliament and on the streets. We have stated that Garibe Gezer is being mistreated and sexually tortured in a prison under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice and is in a solitary cell against her will. As usual, the Ministry of Justice ignored all our initiatives. And then Garibe died under suspicious circumstances. Her family was told of suicide, but her family and her lawyers do not believe it. We too are not convinced that it was suicide. We don’t accept the portrayal as suicide when a woman is systematically abused over a long period of time,” said Ayşe Acar Başaran.

Degradation after death

Even after the death of Garibe Gezer, the degrading treatment continued, the HDP deputy explained. When the body was taken from the morgue, the women lawyers were insulted, and after the coffin was brought to Mardin, a funeral vehicle of the municipality was turned away by police officers. Only fifty people were admitted to the funeral and since Friday evening, pressure has been put on the relatives not to receive mourners. Meanwhile, the Turkish media are reporting that a terrorist fed in prison at state expense has died. “This report says everything about who is responsible for Garibe’s death,” said Başaran.

“Aysel Tuğluk’s condition is getting worse every day”

In Turkey’s prisons, there are hundreds of sick women who continue to be held despite being incapacitated due to hostile government policies, Başaran stated. The best-known example is Aysel Tuğluk, a politician who has been imprisoned for five years and who suffers from memory loss after the traumatic experience of her mother’s funeral and can no longer care for herself. In July, the medical faculty in Kocaeli diagnosed her with a chronic illness and incapacity for detention. Three months later, the forensic medicine certified the opposite. “Aysel’s condition continues to deteriorate every day. At this point, we appeal to the government once again: this enemy criminal law must be ended,” said the HDP MPs.