Ümit Çobanoğlu was arrested in 2008 on allegations of “membership in an organization” and spent 18 years in different prisons. Çobanoğlu, who was 20 years old when he entered prison, is now 38 and has been released for several months.
Throughout his imprisonment, Çobanoğlu stayed in prisons where the ward system was applied as well as in F-type and T-type prisons. The final two and a half years of his captivity were spent in a high-security facility known as a pit-type prison.
Çobanoğlu, who spent many years in different prisons, described the isolation created by the pit-type prison model he experienced in the final period with the following words: “A lot can be said about the pit-type, and yet nothing can be said at the same time. It is very difficult to say something about nothingness. There is truly nothing there.”
Çobanoğlu also pointed to the deep isolation he experienced after being placed in a single cell and said: “We had no communication with other people. I thought, ‘They have taken this from us as well.’ In the F-type, we could write a note to our neighbor, our friend, our comrade in the next cell. We would make balls from newspapers and throw them to each other. There was a form of communication there. They took that from us as well. It felt as if they had taken away our only connection with life.”
Communication rights are being obstructed
Çobanoğlu stated that communication is systematically obstructed in pit-type prisons and said that isolation practices are not limited to what happens inside the prison. He explained the situation with the following words: “Those who have never been in prison cannot understand it. To truly grasp this, one must experience imprisonment. Communication is very important for human beings. The isolation system is built to cut you off from the world. It isolates you from the outside and from your family. For example, I was held in Kırıklar Prison, while my family lived in Izmir. Instead of transferring me to Izmir, they exiled me to Antalya. Some people were transferred to Izmir, but they did not take me there because my family lived in Izmir.
They keep you away from your family. Then they impose communication bans and letter bans. They prevent you from speaking on the phone. They prevent you from sending and receiving letters, and they block your access to newspapers.
They would not give newspapers like Evrensel, saying ‘it has no advertisement from the Press Advertisement Institution.’ BirGün had one, but they still did not give it to us, saying ‘it is not available at the newsstand.’”
We are socialists, we defend organized life
Ümit Çobanoğlu, who describes himself as a socialist and a revolutionary, emphasized that organized life is a constitutional right but is effectively obstructed in practice. Çobanoğlu said: “We are socialist people, revolutionary people. We believe that a person should have an organized life. This can be through trade union organization or within an institution. Being organized is a constitutional right, but in practice they do not allow it to be exercised. Anyone who tries to use this right ends up finding themselves in prison. We try to live in an organized way even in prison. The most important step for this is communication. Because people act in an organized way, they need to speak and communicate with one another. This is also necessary in prison. The purpose of building the F-type prisons was to break up this organization, but they could not eliminate it. Why could they not eliminate it? Because we were able to communicate there. They made great efforts to prevent this, but they could not succeed.”
Being in communication is the way prisoners protect their lives
Ümit Çobanoğlu stated that communication and organization in prisons are not only a social necessity but also vital for physical safety, saying: “Being in communication and having a form of organization is also the way prisoners can physically protect their lives.”
He pointed out that in the past, many reports of “suspicious deaths” have emerged from prisons, emphasizing that official statements often presented different explanations for these deaths and said: “They will say someone hanged himself, but the place he supposedly hanged himself from is shorter than his height. Or someone is beaten to death, but it is reported as a ‘brain hemorrhage’ or a ‘natural death.’”
Çobanoğlu also referred to the assaults they experienced during sit-in protests and said: “For years, when we held sit-in protests, they would drag us down the stairs. If you hit your head on the stairs at that moment, they would say it was a ‘brain hemorrhage.’”
He stressed that attacks against political prisoners are less frequent than those against criminal detainees and linked this to the level of organization among prisoners.He said, “There is a reality of torture in the prisons of Turkey.”
Çobanoğlu said that this solidarity and organization are physically prevented in pit-type prisons, explaining that the architectural structure is designed to cut off communication. He said: “There is no ventilation yard. The yards you go out to are arranged diagonally between the blocks. One is on the right, the next yard is on the left. The traffic of throwing a ball between them has been made impossible. If the friend in the next block dies, you will not know about it.
In the place where we stayed, there was a friend who had been given an aggravated life sentence. He was staying a hundred meters away from us. We could receive no news about him. When communication is reduced to zero, your safety also disappears.”
Çobanoğlu underlined that pit-type prisons are built on a system designed to “drive people insane,” stating that the isolation imposed there amounts to absolute isolation. He added that this situation creates particularly serious consequences for criminal detainees and warned that after their release many people may be encountered on the streets struggling with psychological problems.
Çobanoğlu said: “Under those conditions, in the pit-type prisons, you will go insane. They are built to drive you insane or to leave you completely defenseless against torture. This description of ‘driving people insane’ is not an exaggeration. It is truly designed for that purpose.
There were criminal detainees on the floor below me and on the floor above me. Those men were on the verge of losing their minds. Every day they were shouting ‘kill us’ and banging on the doors and windows. Sometimes we could not sleep because of those sounds. Their psychological state had completely deteriorated.”
A prisoner said, “I heard a human voice after two years”
Ümit Çobanoğlu stated that disciplinary punishments in pit-type prisons are combined with already harsh isolation conditions and described a “cell punishment” he received while staying in a single cell with the following words: “You can receive a cell punishment even inside a cell. Once, while I was in a single cell, they gave me a one-day cell punishment. A guard came, took the television and placed it in front of the door. When my punishment ended the next day, they brought the television back and installed it again. The only difference between the cell and the room where I stayed was the television. When they took the television, it became a cell; when they brought it back, it became a room again.”
Çobanoğlu also recounted another incident from a period when they were held in a three-person cell, explaining that one of their friends had been taken to a single cell. He said: “The block was completely empty; there was only one criminal detainee. They had been keeping him alone for two years. When our friend arrived, the man said, ‘Brother, yours is the first human voice I have heard in two years.’ Just imagine it: he had been alone for two years without hearing anyone’s voice. You completely destroy social communication.”
Resisters’ only demand is to be removed from pit-type prisons
Çobanoğlu stated that the main demand of political prisoners resisting in pit-type prisons is to be transferred out of these facilities, stressing that such structures are not places where anyone should be held. He said: “They also installed wire mesh on the windows. Even the tip of a pen cannot pass through these wires. Not even cigarette smoke can pass through them. They are that small. No light enters inside. When we removed the wires, such light and such air came in that we finally understood the difference. Only then did we see how much the entry of air and light had been blocked. They even cut off your contact with air and light.”
Çobanoğlu also said that cameras are installed in three-person cells and that prisoners are monitored around the clock. He added: “The cameras see everything. They watch you 24 hours a day. We closed them every day, and they would come and turn them back on. Then they would give us disciplinary punishments. What does it mean to watch a person 24 hours a day? It truly damages a person’s psychology. Psychological disorders emerge in this way, and a constant feeling of ‘being watched’ develops.”
Çobanoğlu emphasized that pit-type prisons do not concern only a specific group. He said: “Now it is not only revolutionaries who can be thrown into pit-type prisons; anyone who expresses even the smallest opposition to the government can be sent there. A social struggle must be organized against this. Pit-type prisons are places established to suppress social struggle. They are inhumane places. Society’s attention needs to be drawn to these prisons. There are political prisoners currently on hunger strike. These must be seen, and a sense of social awareness must be created.”
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