Pit-type prisons are known as facilities where revolutionaries are held under absolute isolation, cut off from life and left in deep solitude. With the transfer of political prisoners to these prisons, hunger strikes and death fast resistance actions have frequently taken place. Unlike other prisons, the main aim of these protests has been to secure the transfer of prisoners to different facilities.
In the second part of this file, we focus on prisoners who have spent long periods in pit-type prisons and examine the impact of such conditions on the human being. In this section, Cem Dursun describes pit-type prisons through his own experiences.
Cem Dursun, who spent many years in prison for political reasons, was most recently held in pit-type prisons for nearly a year. Having previously been detained in F-type and T-type prisons, Dursun described pit-type prisons as follows: “F-type and S-type prisons have the same architecture. In F-type prisons, there are eight cells in one corridor, while in S-type prisons there are five cells in a corridor. The cells and the yards are smaller. Y-type prisons consist entirely of single cells.”
Dursun said that three of them were exiled to a Y-type prison. He explained that they were first placed in single cells, then later brought together and held as three prisoners in the same unit. Dursun also described his first moment entering a pit-type prison and said: “The place itself, the architecture, has incredible effects on a person’s psychology, sociology and physiology. Someone outside cannot easily understand this; it is hard to grasp without experiencing it. For example, they would ask me specifically, ‘What kind of feeling is it comparable to?’ You can feel the emotional difference between living in a house with a balcony and one without a balcony. You cannot fully describe it, but you feel it. Especially if you rarely go outside and you live on the first floor or at ground level, you look out of the window at the street. You feel suffocated in that closed space and want to take a breath. At that moment, the balcony becomes a kind of relief. Even without going outside, you can feel the outside; you feel that sense of freedom. In pit-type prisons, none of that exists. I have been in many prisons, but I had never felt what I felt in a pit-type prison.”
You are in a closed space where you cannot go anywhere
Dursun said, “When we moved to triple cells, there were two adjacent compartment-style cells. They did not open to anywhere; there was no door. The cells were three stories high and stacked on top of each other; we were on the second floor. There was a yard below, but it could only be seen through a wire-mesh window and you could see only a small part of it. You are in a completely closed space where you cannot go anywhere, and there are cameras everywhere.
The cameras were placed in such a way that they could directly see the toilet door. When the toilet door was opened, the camera could see the area directly opposite the door. At the same time, the angle the camera could not see could be seen through the glass of the cell door. The camera inside the cell directly saw two beds; the third bed it could not see was monitored by the camera placed in the yard. You had no privacy at all.”
My first thought was: I will not stay here
Dursun also said: “The first thing I felt was this: it was as if boiling water had been poured over my head, and I said, ‘I will not live here.’ That was the first thing I said. From that moment on, together with Oktay Kelebek and Mehmet Güvel, we decided that we would not make any demands for rights in this prison and that we would not ask for any improvements. We would have only one demand: to be transferred.
The section we were in was being opened for the first time; we were the first ones brought there. If we had accepted staying and made demands for rights, they would have brought other revolutionary prisoners here as well. For a month, we cleaned the grout in the cell. We said we would not demand any improvements regarding this prison; we would leave here. In other words, we are resisting, and we will continue to resist.
When we met with the prison director, we were threatened. They said, ‘Look, the three of you are staying together; we can put you in single cells.’ There were no cameras in the single cells; we were already opposing the cameras. They were telling us, ‘This is neither in your hands nor in ours.’”
Dursun also described a day in a pit-type prison: “When prisons first open, different policies are applied. It was the same in F-type prisons, and it continues to be so. For example, while the prison administration in Bolu F-type Prison allowed ten hours of conversation time, we know that prisoners in Tekirdağ F-type Prison had to resist even for one hour of conversation rights. Each prison has its own specific policies. The state somehow tries to draw a line through a trial-and-error method. For example, in the Kırşehir pit-type prison they did not grant any rights. During hunger strikes they are obliged to provide vitamin B, but they turned even that into a form of torture.
In our case, the situation was the opposite. They tried to behave so well that it almost made you sick; they caused no problems with anything. For example, a blood pressure monitor is normally not given inside the cell to people who do not have blood pressure problems; we asked for one and they gave it to us. Normally, blood pressure is measured in the infirmary; even though we could go to the infirmary whenever we wanted, they still gave us the device. During the hunger strike they always provided vitamin B1. Whenever we asked for books, they brought them the next day. Our letters were never censored. In F-type prisons, letters written by friends about pit-type prisons were censored, but not a single one of our letters was blocked. We even mentioned this and said, ‘Let us stay in this prison, even our letters are not being blocked.’ That same week, a meaningless expression in one of our letters was censored, just so it would appear that something had been blocked. In fact, these were forms of political struggle for us.
For example, since we did not intend to stay here, we did not buy a refrigerator or a television; we did not settle into those cells. The guards would come and ask, ‘Do you need anything? Look, the vegetables are going bad; if you cannot store them, we can give you a refrigerator.’ We were asking for a radio, but they would come and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we gave you a television? If you cannot get one, we can provide it.’”
In fact, one can stay in any prison, as long as one knows how to resist
Cem Dursun continued: “In fact, one can stay in any prison. One can also stay in pit-type prisons. A person who knows how to resist and who can preserve their existence and personality can live anywhere. Living in a pit-type prison is not the issue; the issue is whether you accept living there or not. We did not accept it. Because one day, when the authorities try to crush revolutionaries and attempt to use the architecture of F-type prisons and pit-type prisons as weapons, the architecture of pit-type prisons holds far more ammunition in their hands.
This is because it has a very large area of isolation. We also thought about this: ‘If we were to accept living here, what would they have to give us for us to accept it?’ There was only one ventilation yard for a single three-story block of cells. It is not enough for the doors of the cells on the same floor to be open; for us to live there, the doors of the cells on all three floors would also need to remain open. Because nine three-person cells, that is, 27 people, share a single open yard. When the time comes, those three cells only have the right to go out to the yard for one hour each. The state can close the doors whenever it wants. This issue was also widely discussed during the F-type prison process; there was a matter of three doors and three locks. At that time, prisoners did not accept it, and looking back today, it might seem like something that could have been accepted. But that did not mean that those doors would not be closed one day.
Since 2015, prisoners have carried out continuous acts of resistance against fascism. There have been acts of physical resistance. These resistances show that under conditions of fascism no right remains fixed, and they form the basis of continuous resistance. Pit-type prisons are also places that should not be accepted under today’s conditions. That is why hunger strikes and death fast actions continue.”
Tomorrow: ‘Pit-type prisons were built to drive people mad’
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