JINHA

IZMIR – As concern grows about conditions in Turkey’s notorious Şakran Prison, lawyers conducting interviews there say the reports of solitary confinement of pregnant minors are the tip of the iceberg.

Lawyers from the legal activist groups Free Lawyers Association and Modern Lawyers Association interviewed juvenile prisoners at Şakran Prison yesterday, where it emerged over the weekend that guards are holding pregnant minors in solitary confinement.

Lawyer Fatma Demirel says the delegation of lawyers has learned that of the three girls being held in solitary, two are pregnant. Guards are continuing to arbitrarily detain one girl, despite her having pains and receiving a doctor’s report on Friday saying she needed to be taken to the hospital. Prison officials claim they can only take a group of six prisoners to the hospital. None of the girls are being allowed regular monthly check-ups with a doctor.

In the barracks, prisoners are being held in crowded conditions. One prisoner, who is imprisoned with her 8-month-old baby, is sleeping on the floor because guards have assigned five people to a three-person bunk. Prisoners with children are not being allowed to heat up baby food and as a result are unable to feed their infants. Prisoners also report that male inmates often enter the children’s bunks in the middle of the night wearing ski masks.

Guards have insisted that a mentally-ill prisoner who has been having violent episodes is “fine” and are refusing to take her to take her to a hospital. Guards handcuffed the prisoner and held her in a broom closet for a long period of time. They used the same punishment for a child prisoner, who they held for an entire day in the broom closet.

Fatma reported that when she spoke with prison officials, they replied that the prison “is not a four-star hotel.”

The Kurdish women’s group Congress of Free Women (KJA) released a statement yesterday condemning the treatment in the prison. They called for the immediate investigation of the problem and the punishment of those responsible.

(ck/fk/cm)