Prisoner Meryem Özsöğüt highlighted the health conditions of Serkan Onur Yılmaz, who has been on a death fast for 317 days in Bolu Type F Prison, as well as Hüseyin Özen, Ümit Çobanoğlu, Gürkan Türkoğlu, Tahsin Sağaltıcı, Fırat Kaya, Ayberk Demirdöğen, Murat Canım, Seval Aracı, Fikret Akar, Ali Aracı, and Ali Dilmen, who have been on hunger strike for more than 200 days in various prisons.
Ventilation is very important for prisoners
Meryem Özsöğüt described the conditions in high-security prisons, saying that “those who haven’t been imprisoned don’t know; ventilation is very important for a prisoner (…) In pit-type prisons, inmates are taken once or twice a day to a ventilation yard located in another section. Normal prisons are two stories high, but pit-type prisons are three stories. When prisoners in the yard look up at the sky, they feel as though they are staring from the bottom of a well.”
No human face, no human voice
Explaining that in ‘pit-type’ prisons, inmates do not have direct contact with guards, Meryem Özsöğüt said: “Prisoners communicate via the intercom in their cells, without ever seeing the guards’ faces. When leaving the cell for visits, infirmary, etc., the door opens automatically. Again, there are no guards in the corridor; prisoners are guided by a voice through the speaker: ‘Turn right, turn left, walk up the stairs,’ and so on. No human face, no human voice! In short, in pit-type prisons: No sun, no air, no movement, no sound, no people. Hallaj-i Mansur says, ‘True hell is not where you suffer, but where no one knows you suffer.’ Anyone who remains silent about pit-type prisons is adding wood to this hellfire.