HDP Ağrı MP Taşdemir: The government is sending a message to the outside with its policy on prisons

HDP Ağrı MP, Dilan Diyet Taşdemir, said that the prisons were filled with Kurds, revolutionaries, women and people who demanded democratic rights, who resisted fascism, and added that putting them in prison was also a message sent abroad.

Taşdemir told ANF about the successive news of death and torture in prisons and said: “Actually, prisons have started to be used as a violence laboratory as a reflection of the pressure and will-breaking policies applied oustide. There is a completely arbitrary process in which all kinds of rights are violated, people are punished, thrown into cells, and their release is left in the hands of the authorities. Those who carried out the fascist coup of 12 September [1980] imprisoned Kurds, women and revolutionaries who resisted these policies in order to break the will of society at that time. Today we witness the same mentality. These people want to send a message outside as well with this wave of violence in prisons. They are trying to put under control anyone who opposes their policy through prison. What we are witnessing today is a continuation of the 12 September coup plotters, the AKP-MHP government follows a special policy in prisons.”

Taşdemir continued: “Under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice, prisoners – whose life safety is the responsibility of this government – somehow lose their lives and it is claimed that they committed suicide. Garibe Gezer exposed what actually happened in prison. She said that she was sexually assaulted. She exposed the fascism she witnessed in prison in her letters and visits with family and lawyers. The Ministry of Justice closed its ears in order not to hear this cry, and did not initiate any investigation on the subject. As if such a death had not occurred, as if there had been no sexual assault, the applications of lawyers to investigate were also rejected. Prisons are currently overcrowded. When we look at the identities of those in prison, we see that they are Kurds, revolutionaries, women, people who have been resisting AKP fascism for the last 6 years, and people who demand democratic rights. What the government says to these people is, ‘You made politics outside, you resisted, you did not surrender, but here I am imposing surrender on you’.