The recently increasing transfer of prisoners from Kurdistan to other jails across the country, to Aliağa, Şakran and Tekirdağ prisons in particular, has not only brought along further inhuman treatment and violation of rights against prisoners, but also raised concerns that the government is emptying the prisons in Kurdistan ahead of new arrest operations.

In a statement on the transfer and dispersion of Kurdish prisoners to other jails far away from their families, IHD (Human Rights Association) Mardin Branch Chair lawyer Hüseyin Cangir reminded that dozens of prisoners have been transferred from Mardin, Siirt and Batman prisons in the last one month as a government policy. Denying the government's statements which defend that prisoners are being transferred due to lack of space in prisons, Cangir remarked that the transfers were aimed to set prisoners apart from their families, to depersonalise them under moral coercion and to sever their ties with the society.

Noting that most of the families of the transferred prisoners had no financial possibility to visit their relatives after the transfers, Cangir pointed out that one other purpose of the transfers was the elimination of the support prisoners receive from their families, lawyers and the society against the right violations they face in prison.

Cangir said the recent transfers reminded of the transfers made before the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) operations launched in 2009. “Each transfer from Kurdistan prisons has been followed by expansive arrest operations so far. This is why we are concerned that the recent transfers are a part of preparations for a new such operation”, he underlined.

Lawyer Cangir said the prisoners who are not transferred from Kurdistan jails are on the other hand suffering from increasing arbitrary treatments, repression and right violations such as sexual harassment under the cover of 'detailed search', forced displacement in wards, disciplinary punishments for submitting letters of application to the prison administration and raids in wards at midnight.

TUHAD-DER (Solidarity Association of Prisoners' Families)  Mardin Branch executive Orhan Ablak said the transfers were a consequence of the repentance imposition prisoners are subjected to.

Ablak stressed that the transfers violated all laws and human rights for involving even ill prisoners and many other inmates who have a report proving that they are 'unable to travel'.

Ablak noted that TUHAD-DER would stage a demo outside the Mardin prison in the coming days to protest against the transfers and the right violations against in mates in Mardin prison. Ablak called on families of prisoners and the people to display solidarity with the Association and to end the repression and right violations prisoners are facing.