The Council of Europe Anti-Torture Committee (CPT) has sharply criticized maladministration in Turkish prisons and police stations. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must take more action against suspected ill-treatment of detainees in police custody, the CPT panel said today when it presented two reports on the situation in Turkish prisons.
The Turkish police must receive a „clear and firm message“ that there is no tolerance for ill-treatment in police custody and detention centers, the panel said.
The message must come from the highest political level, „namely the President of the Republic,“ wrote the panel. During a visit to several police stations and detention centers in 2019, a „substantial“ number of allegations of police violence were brought to the panel, CTP said.
Most of the cases involved beatings, either to force a confession or to punish someone in police custody, the expert group wrote.
Number of incidents almost unchanged since 2017
The severity of the alleged ill-treatment was less severe compared to a visit in 2017 – but the number is consistently high and therefore worrying, the panel said. The Turkish authorities rejected the allegations in response to the report. Obtaining confessions and information through the use of violence is not common.
In the 2019 report, the panel specifically criticized the conditions of detention in the heavily secured Imrali prison, where among others PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is imprisoned. The four prisoners detained there at the time of the visit were in solitary confinement up to nine hours a week.
The CPT consists of experts from the Council of Europe and is based in Strasbourg. The reports are not an investigation against a state. They are only used to monitor compliance with human rights in prisons in the 47 member states of the Council of Europe.
