ANKARA - Explaining the violations in Sincan Women's Closed Prison, ÖHD lawyer Nurdan Kılıç said that the demands of women prisoners on hunger strike must be socialized.

 

Lawyers for Freedom Association (ÖHD) member Lawyer Nurdan Kılıç talked about the rights violations in Sincan Women's Closed Prison. Stating that prisons are places of detention designed from a male perspective, Kılıç pointed out that for this reason, the pressures on women are more intense.

 

RIGHT VIOLATIONS HAVE BECOME RURAL

 

Kılıç stated that access to basic human rights, especially the right to health, is prevented in prisons, and that ill prisoners are left to die and torture and arbitrary practices have increased. Kılıç emphasized that violations of rights in prisons have become ordinary and established, and underlined that this situation is the result of isolation becoming a form of management.

 

HUNGER STRIKE ACTION

 

Referring to the hunger strike action initiated by political prisoners in prisons demanding the physical freedom of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been held in absolute isolation in İmralı Type F High Security Closed Prison and has not been heard from for 34 months, and the solution of the Kurdish issue, Kılıç said that as ÖHD Ankara Branch and Hunger Strikes Monitoring General Coordination, they follow the situation of the prisoners in action and prepare reports. Kılıç emphasized that the demands are only legitimate and feasible.

 

PROVISION OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

 

Kılıç said: “This means ending the rights violations of prisoners, not only in the person of Mr. Öcalan, but also in prisoners, which have become increasingly entrenched, ordinary and spread throughout all prisons. It means ending the anti-democratic practices that leave us all breathless in prisons and outside and ensuring rights and freedoms in Turkey.”

 

'THE PRISONERS ARE WAITING TO BE HEARD’

 

Stating that the motivation of the women prisoners on hunger strike is high, Kılıç said: “The demands of the prisoners are not only for themselves or the violations of rights against them; Since it is the end of the anti-democratic practices that have become established in Turkey, they expect it to be embraced by all segments of society.”

 

Sharing her observations and impressions about Sincan Women's Closed Prison, Kılıç said: “They are carrying out a resistance from the prisons to the outside. Therefore, in this regard, it is inevitable for prison administrations to be party to unlawful practices, especially disciplinary punishments. Before the hunger strike that started on November 27, all women political prisoners in Sincan Women's Prison had carried out a three-day protest of not accept the food. This action was also an objection to the indifference towards all ill prisoners.”

 

NON-MEDICIAN MONITORING COMMITTEE!

 

Kılıç stated that the meeting with the prisoners on hunger strike in Sincan Women's Prison was held without a doctor, although the delegation that was supposed to monitor them was had to be a doctor, said: “In Sincan, these monitoring takes place in the absence of a doctor. This situation has the following meaning: International medical organizations have also determined some principles regarding the vitality of vitamin B1 supplements, which we experienced during the hunger strikes of 2000 and 2012. Doctors have serious responsibilities in this sense. However, the doctors do not prescribe the B1 supplement, which they are supposed to prescribe after making a visit, because they are not in the committee, and there is an indifference regarding this”

 

'GENDERED' PUNISHMENTS

 

Stating that prisons are places of detention designed from a male perspective, Kılıç noted that the punishments given to women prisoners are therefore "gendered punishments". Kılıç said: “Women who struggle for the socialization of the women's movement in Kurdistan and Turkey especially want to carry this struggle from the prisons to the outside. Being imprisoned is the first step of applying pressure and force on women. On the prisoner side, prison administrations use first-hand pressure, force and disciplinary punishments to prevent this struggle from moving from the inside to the outside and to break the bond between imprisoned women and women outside. "The fact that the rights violations experienced especially in women's penal institutions are more severe for women is a direct result of this”

 

'DEMANDS MUST BE SOCIALIZED'

 

Kılıç emphasized that the reason for the hunger strike action of the prisoners was to be addressed and said:  "In order to socialize the demands of the prisoners, who have no other means than making their voices  heard outside with the hunger strike, we will continue to make legal applications, discuss these hunger strikes with political, legal organizations and non-governmental organizations in the ongoing process and support this. We will continue our work to include the relevant demands in various applications”