As rights violations in prisons continue to rise, prisoners held in facilities in the Serhad region and the Black Sea region have recently been subjected to threats and verbal abuse in particular. Prisoners have also reported that their petitions are not being processed and that they face problems during hospital transfers.
One of the prisons where these violations have been reported is the Ankara Sincan No. 2 High-Security Prison, where a prisoner named Burhan Şık was beaten by guards and threatened by the prison director. Speaking on the issue, Burhan Şık’s brother, Mehmet Şık, said that pressure inside the prison is ongoing and that they have filed a criminal complaint over the incident.
Threatened after torture
Mehmet Şık said that his brother has been imprisoned since 2016 and is serving a sentence of 11 years and eight months. He noted that before his brother’s sentence was finalized, he spent two and a half years in prison, but this period was not deducted from his sentence. Despite filing objections over this, Mehmet Şık said the unlawfulness has continued.
He said: “My brother has been held in solitary confinement for more than two years in an arbitrary manner, even though he is not serving an aggravated life sentence. He is facing very serious problems and numerous rights violations here. Last month, when guards came to his ward, he said, ‘There is no trash here.’ Following this, the director ordered, ‘Conduct a strip search here,’ and his cell was searched. After that, he was first subjected to insults and then to physical torture.”
Mehmet Şık summarized what happened as follows: “All of a sudden, five guards attacked my brother, tried to break his arm and injured his shoulder. My brother did not resist at all and only chanted, ‘Human dignity will defeat torture.’ After that, two people held his arms and two held his legs and beat him as they dragged him down to the lower floor. At the hospital he was taken to, a small fracture was seen in his right shoulder, but this fracture did not appear on the tomography scan. Due to the beating, he has wounds on many parts of his body.”
Threat from the prison director: “You are my enemy”
Mehmet Şık said that the torture has continued alongside threats and that they have filed a criminal complaint over the incident. He said: “We raised this torture, but the insults and threats are continuing. We also know that when he was taken to the infirmary, he was not referred to any hospital. When we spoke with him, we learned that he was threatened by a woman who serves as the second director at the prison where he is held, who told him, ‘You are my enemy.’ As a family, we filed a criminal complaint against this individual and the guards. The last time we spoke to him on the phone, he said that the pressure was continuing. We want these violations and threats to end. The Ministry of Justice must not remain silent. These acts of torture must stop.”
Investigation launched against prisoners who showed support
According to information obtained, an investigation has also been launched against other prisoners who heard Burhan Şık’s voice during the torture and expressed support for him by chanting slogans. It was also reported that Serhat Eren, an MP for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) from Diyarbakir (Amed), has taken the issue to parliament and is following the case closely.