Strip searches in Turkish prisons

Fifteen prisoners on hunger strike in Osmaniye T Type Closed prison are said to be in serious health condions. They are protesting against the inhuman treatment in prison as well as against the military operations against Kurds. Lawyer Ömer Ayaz from the Human Rights Association (?HD) has pointed out that strip searches are going on in the prison and said they are a violation of basic human rights. Strip searching practices are being cited in a report by the Parliament’s Human Rights Watch Commission.
“These type of searches have no place in a democracy. The prison administration has admitted the inhuman treatment that we have been pointing out as ?HD for a long time now,” said Ayaz.

The Parliament’s Human Rights Watch Commission’s report had found out other rights violations such as military-like census taking and forced daily shaving. The prison administration notes that strip searches are carried out in the presence of a doctor as prescribed by law. However, the prisoners and prisoners’ families said there is no doctor when most of the strip searches take place.

Lawyer Ayaz has emphasized that Parliament must take an action against the inhuman treatment in Osmaniye T Type prison immediately.

Strip searches were the subject of a long campaign in the North of Ireland during the ’70s and ’80s. Unfortunately they are not a thing of the past as revealed by Irish political prisoners only a few months ago. They reported that strip searches are indeed still taking place.

The women in Maghaberry prison had campaigned for an end to this brutal practice. All women prisoners in Northern Ireland were strip-searched every time they enter of leave their prison compound, like when they are going to meet a visitor, or taken to court on remand, or visiting the infirmary. They had to stand in a closed-off cubicle, take off all their clothes and them out to two screws.

If they refused, they would be thrown down on the floor and forcibly stripped.

---