BDP Mersin deputy Kürkçü releases report on Pozantý
BDP Mersin deputy Kürkçü releases report on Pozantý
BDP Mersin MP, Ertuðrul Kürkçü has released his report on Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison. The BDP deputy has visited the jail and the authorities and has underlined that unfortunately what was exposed in Pozantý, the sexual abuse and harassment of children, is not something confined to the Adana prison, but is something which need to be investigated in other prisons as well. Kürkçü also added that 80 percent of the children in prison are charged under the Anti-Terror Law (TMK) and all of the abused child prisoners were Kurdish. He commented that the jailed children issue was a reflection of the Kurdish issue and the anti-democratic government.
Here the report main findings:
i. Before the visit to prison
• The attack, violence, rape and harassment of children in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison came along as the last ring of a chain of systematical violations of rights these children suffer from on streets, in the presence of police and army vehicles, in anti-terror detention centers and in courts before being jailed.
• According to the information given by the authorities in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, 80 percent of jailed children and those who have exposed the violence going on in the institution are Kurds. Most of these children live in Çay, Çilek, Özgürlük and Güneþ Neighborhoods in Mersin where they migrated to after their hometowns in the southeastern region were evacuated from early to late 1990’s. Their families are in general poor, they have unstable jobs.
• Children told of being oppressed, expelled, abused and mistreated by all public authorities since they first started going to primary school. Only families are not abusing them.
• All the children left schools after primary school because they could not cope with the insults of their teachers and school authorities about their language, identity, origin and personalities, not for “insufficient financial conditions”. After leaving school, the children started to work in a workplace or in the street.
• The children are very interested in the “Kurdish issue” and they display a more intense political interest in comparison to their peer age group. Most of these children have been arrested because allegedly they confronted the police, in other words they are accused of “throwing stones” and “participating to illegal demonstrations”.
• The majority of the children were taken into custody as a result of operations by security forces. They suffered from “abuse of child rights”, they were forced into being “informants”, asked to set up their friends, questioned without their parents or lawyers and forced to confess to "crimes".
• In a report by Dr. Didem Gelegen, expert at Ýþtar Women’s Solidarity Center which conducts social trauma group works with children, he define the child-police relation like this: “Children see the police station and the police officers in their neighborhood as an object of fear and hate. Throwing stone to a police station is the most attractive activity for children at all ages. The relations between the children and police officers in stations have turned into a “dirty violence game”. Children tell that police officers in their normal behaviour intimidate children and make them grow suspicious of friends with threats like “Your friend has set you up, we will take you away in the evening”. A five year-old child who was wounded on his right eye during a demonstration on 06.07.2011 told that a police officer had slung a marble at him. While our team was horrified by the event, the family of the child didn’t even think about taking him to hospital or making a complaint about the police officer. These kinds of events have become ordinary.”
• All the children I met in Mersin tell that police see them as “enemies” and think that they will “sooner or later go to the mountain” [to join the guerrilla]. The children are kept waiting naked in the cold, they are beaten and tortured by police officers, they say. A child who had a souvenir photo taken with me during the election campaign last year was forced to confess everything related with me. He described me as “head terrorist in contact with the rural area”.
ii. In prison
• Before the transfer to Sincan Juvenile Closed Prison in Ankara, a total of 218 children were held in Pozantý Juvenile prison. 39 of the kids were jailed in relation to anti-terror legislation.
• IHD Mersin branch has received the first applications from children in April, and immediately reported the violence to the relevant authorities in July of 2011. But public authorities haven’t handled the matter properly until the events hit the headlines following the public statements to the press made by the children themselves. On the other hand, Pozantý Public Prosecution office has neither concluded the criminal investigation into the allegations nor any administrative investigation into prison authorities and the children accused.
• Although the authorities of the prison insist that the allegations are related to a previous period, the parents of six jailed children said their children suffer from serious injuries and beatings.
•Among the violations of rights the children were subject to are;
-being beaten by police, soldier and guardians with hard objects, sticks and iron bars,
-being insulted, mistreated and kept waiting naked in the cold by police, soldier and guardians on the grounds of being Kurds,
-being forced to share the same wards with ordinary prisoners, being delivered to ward representatives who apparently act in cooperation with the administration and force children to kiss the Turkish flag, to deny their identity and not to speak Kurdish as well as imposing arbitrary punishments on children, depriving them of their clothes and food.
-rape, harassment
-prevention of their complaints from being conveyed to administrators,
-not being able to receive legal assistance, nonperformance of the duties by the lawyers appointed by the bar association,
iii. After prison
• After being released from Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, the children suffer from systematical mobbing by anti-terror branch officers in their neighborhoods, they are forced to act as informants and to set up their friends after being forcibly detained by patrolling security forces.
• A child who was among those exposing abuses against children in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, told that he has recently been detained by police and forced to withdraw his complaint. The child had to withdraw his complaint and then appealed to IHD to file a new complaint.
• Among the main problems the released children face are;
-gain a place in the society,
-not being able to move freely in their neighborhoods, being arbitrarily detained and being exposed to insult and threats by police officers,
- being deprived of legal assistance during trials,
-not being able to continue their education
iv. Transfer from Pozantý
• No assurance is given at present that racism, discrimination and violations of rights will end in Sincan prison where there kids are being transferred to. The closure of Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison has in a way affected the discovery of truth about the structure of this institution and the treatment and abuses which went on there. On the other hand, public authorities and the public opinion haven’t created awareness towards the violations of rights that the children are subject to before being put in prison.
• By transferring these children to a prison 500 km away from their homes and families, the Ministry of Justice has imposed on the children and their families a new unjust treatment.
• It is obvious that the families of these children, poor as they are, will suffer more from now on because of the long distance as they will be forced to spend more time and money to see their children.
• The statements by the Ministry of Justice about a “teleconference” system to be used during the trial of children from now on reveal that the children’s right to a fair trial is completely being ignored.
• The transfer of children to Sincan prison in Ankara doesn’t remove or resolve the circumstances that lead to their imprisonment. On the other hand, it is not a secret that similar allegations on violations of rights are coming out from all juvenile prisons, as unfortunately they are not peculiar to Pozantý prison.
Here the report main findings:
i. Before the visit to prison
• The attack, violence, rape and harassment of children in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison came along as the last ring of a chain of systematical violations of rights these children suffer from on streets, in the presence of police and army vehicles, in anti-terror detention centers and in courts before being jailed.
• According to the information given by the authorities in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, 80 percent of jailed children and those who have exposed the violence going on in the institution are Kurds. Most of these children live in Çay, Çilek, Özgürlük and Güneþ Neighborhoods in Mersin where they migrated to after their hometowns in the southeastern region were evacuated from early to late 1990’s. Their families are in general poor, they have unstable jobs.
• Children told of being oppressed, expelled, abused and mistreated by all public authorities since they first started going to primary school. Only families are not abusing them.
• All the children left schools after primary school because they could not cope with the insults of their teachers and school authorities about their language, identity, origin and personalities, not for “insufficient financial conditions”. After leaving school, the children started to work in a workplace or in the street.
• The children are very interested in the “Kurdish issue” and they display a more intense political interest in comparison to their peer age group. Most of these children have been arrested because allegedly they confronted the police, in other words they are accused of “throwing stones” and “participating to illegal demonstrations”.
• The majority of the children were taken into custody as a result of operations by security forces. They suffered from “abuse of child rights”, they were forced into being “informants”, asked to set up their friends, questioned without their parents or lawyers and forced to confess to "crimes".
• In a report by Dr. Didem Gelegen, expert at Ýþtar Women’s Solidarity Center which conducts social trauma group works with children, he define the child-police relation like this: “Children see the police station and the police officers in their neighborhood as an object of fear and hate. Throwing stone to a police station is the most attractive activity for children at all ages. The relations between the children and police officers in stations have turned into a “dirty violence game”. Children tell that police officers in their normal behaviour intimidate children and make them grow suspicious of friends with threats like “Your friend has set you up, we will take you away in the evening”. A five year-old child who was wounded on his right eye during a demonstration on 06.07.2011 told that a police officer had slung a marble at him. While our team was horrified by the event, the family of the child didn’t even think about taking him to hospital or making a complaint about the police officer. These kinds of events have become ordinary.”
• All the children I met in Mersin tell that police see them as “enemies” and think that they will “sooner or later go to the mountain” [to join the guerrilla]. The children are kept waiting naked in the cold, they are beaten and tortured by police officers, they say. A child who had a souvenir photo taken with me during the election campaign last year was forced to confess everything related with me. He described me as “head terrorist in contact with the rural area”.
ii. In prison
• Before the transfer to Sincan Juvenile Closed Prison in Ankara, a total of 218 children were held in Pozantý Juvenile prison. 39 of the kids were jailed in relation to anti-terror legislation.
• IHD Mersin branch has received the first applications from children in April, and immediately reported the violence to the relevant authorities in July of 2011. But public authorities haven’t handled the matter properly until the events hit the headlines following the public statements to the press made by the children themselves. On the other hand, Pozantý Public Prosecution office has neither concluded the criminal investigation into the allegations nor any administrative investigation into prison authorities and the children accused.
• Although the authorities of the prison insist that the allegations are related to a previous period, the parents of six jailed children said their children suffer from serious injuries and beatings.
•Among the violations of rights the children were subject to are;
-being beaten by police, soldier and guardians with hard objects, sticks and iron bars,
-being insulted, mistreated and kept waiting naked in the cold by police, soldier and guardians on the grounds of being Kurds,
-being forced to share the same wards with ordinary prisoners, being delivered to ward representatives who apparently act in cooperation with the administration and force children to kiss the Turkish flag, to deny their identity and not to speak Kurdish as well as imposing arbitrary punishments on children, depriving them of their clothes and food.
-rape, harassment
-prevention of their complaints from being conveyed to administrators,
-not being able to receive legal assistance, nonperformance of the duties by the lawyers appointed by the bar association,
iii. After prison
• After being released from Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, the children suffer from systematical mobbing by anti-terror branch officers in their neighborhoods, they are forced to act as informants and to set up their friends after being forcibly detained by patrolling security forces.
• A child who was among those exposing abuses against children in Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison, told that he has recently been detained by police and forced to withdraw his complaint. The child had to withdraw his complaint and then appealed to IHD to file a new complaint.
• Among the main problems the released children face are;
-gain a place in the society,
-not being able to move freely in their neighborhoods, being arbitrarily detained and being exposed to insult and threats by police officers,
- being deprived of legal assistance during trials,
-not being able to continue their education
iv. Transfer from Pozantý
• No assurance is given at present that racism, discrimination and violations of rights will end in Sincan prison where there kids are being transferred to. The closure of Pozantý Juvenile Closed prison has in a way affected the discovery of truth about the structure of this institution and the treatment and abuses which went on there. On the other hand, public authorities and the public opinion haven’t created awareness towards the violations of rights that the children are subject to before being put in prison.
• By transferring these children to a prison 500 km away from their homes and families, the Ministry of Justice has imposed on the children and their families a new unjust treatment.
• It is obvious that the families of these children, poor as they are, will suffer more from now on because of the long distance as they will be forced to spend more time and money to see their children.
• The statements by the Ministry of Justice about a “teleconference” system to be used during the trial of children from now on reveal that the children’s right to a fair trial is completely being ignored.
• The transfer of children to Sincan prison in Ankara doesn’t remove or resolve the circumstances that lead to their imprisonment. On the other hand, it is not a secret that similar allegations on violations of rights are coming out from all juvenile prisons, as unfortunately they are not peculiar to Pozantý prison.
