Together with the war concept launched on 24 July 2015, there has been a significant increase in the rights violations in Turkish prisons.

Prisoners are subjected to many rights violations and arbitrary practices, such as torture, ill-treatment, refusal of referrals, censorship of letters, confiscation of books, and so on.

Drawing attention to the rights violations in prisons, Abdullah Zeytun, Head of the Human Rights Association (İHD) Amed Branch, shared the information on the rights violations with ANF.

Stating that prison administrations have put arbitrary applications under the orders of political power, Zeytun underlined that "these arbitrary practices have been turned into serious violations of rights or even torture".

Zeytun added that many of the right violations in prison are actually not exposed and this is because the prison administrations are forbidding prisoners to tell what they have to suffer to the outside world.

He remarked that the prison administrations ignored rights of prisoners who were subjected to violent repression.

Confirming that access to many services, especially health, was prevented by the prison administrations, Zeytun shared information about serious violations of rights, especially in Elazığ, Patnos and Tarsus prisons.

Repression in prisons, said Zeytun, are a reflection of the policies of impunity which stemmed from the fact that the political power has taken over the monopoly of the judiciary.

Zeytun reminded that nearly 60 seriously ill prisoners are in jail as recorded by the Human Rights Association.

The prisons where rights violations are most recurring are Elazığ No. 1 and No. 2.

"We have received information that Kurdish books which are not in the Elazığ prison’s list of books not to be confiscated are arbitrarily not given to prisoners by the prison administration. Likewise - Zeytun added - books written by political prisoners are also confiscated as a result of cell raids that are frequently being carried out.