The Amed branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD) held a press conference to talk about the situation of Seda Baykan, who is in Diyarbakır Women’s Closed Prison and has gone on hunger strike in response to the rights violations she has faced. The meeting, held at the branch building, was attended by Seda Baykan’s mother Dilek Baykan, Prisoners’ Voice Initiative member Hüseyin İldan, and the Association for Solidarity with the Families of Prisoners and Convicts in Amed (TUAY-DER).
Hüseyin Ildan, a member of the Prisoners’ Voice Initiative, said that Seda Baykan has been subjected to systematic pressure for four years and stated: “Socialist prisoner Seda Baykan, who was detained in İzmir in September 2022 and has been held in Diyarbakır Women’s Closed Prison since then, began an indefinite hunger strike on April 1 because she has been subjected to systematic pressure and isolation policies for nearly four years.
As if the severe isolation she faces were not enough, she has also been subjected to harassment amounting to threats from criminal detainees in the same corridor. The prison administration, however, has merely watched and continued to turn a blind eye to all of Seda Baykan’s applications to resolve this problem.”
Seda Baykan’s mother, Dilek Baykan, said: “My daughter, who was placed in a section with criminal detainees accused of various crimes, told me, ‘I am constantly subjected to threats from criminal detainees; they say they will stab you with a shiv.’ I cannot sleep out of fear that something might happen to my daughter at any moment. My daughter should be transferred to the section with those who are being tried under the same case as her. They should now listen to their conscience.”
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