Prisoners in the Adana Kurkculer Type F Closed Prison had objected to ISIS prisoners entering the same visitation area as them during their family visit on July 1, citing the risk to their and their families’ safety. Tensions rose and families were able to see their relatives for only five minutes.

“WE WERE ATTACKED BY GUARDS”

Prisoner Ali Okutan later phoned his family and said the guards attacked them after the visitation on July 1.

Okutan Said: “The guards storm the wards and beat us. During the July 1 visitation, ISIS members threatened us. The guards battered us until we were back in the ward. Our lives and the lives of our families are at risk. We won’t go out to visitations until this practice is stopped.”

“THEY ARE UNDER RISK, THERE SHOULD BE AN INTERVENTION”

Ali Okutan’s brother Duzgun Okutan said their relatives being taken to visitation in the same hall as ISIS members is a provocation:

“Last week there was an open visitation. When we went, the prisoners were taken to the visitation hall. Later ISIS members were brought into the same hall. Our relatives had been refusing to go out to open visitation for almost a year because they were made to go at the same place with ISIS members. Then the prisoners said they won’t accept that and they won’t go to visitation in the same room, saying that it is an open provocation. Then the ISIS members got up and started to shout and hurl insults. The guards took my brother and his friends away immediately. We heard slogans until we left the prison. Today we spoke on the phone and he said they were attacked as they were taken back to the ward and then in the ward itself. They were attacked 3 times from the visitation day to the day of the phone call. We are concerned for their lives. We want the Human Rights Association (IHD) and authorities to intervene.”