DİYARBAKIR - Lawyers and human rights activists have filed criminal charges against the staff in Diyarbakir prison. Hundreds of prisoners who had been transferred there after the Corona uprising in Batman are said to have been tortured.
The Association of Lawyers for Freedom (Özgürlük için Hukukçular Derneği, ÖHD) and the prisoners' solidarity organisation MED TUHAD-FED have filed criminal charges with the public prosecutor's office in Diyarbakir against the staff of the T-type prison in the Kurdish metropolis of Amed (Diyarbakir). Both groups are accusing the security forces of the prison of violating the ban on torture in several cases.
On Saturday, an uprising broke out in a prison in the neighbouring province of Batman. The background was a draft amendment to the prison law, which provides for the release of up to 100,000 prisoners in Turkish prisons in view of the high risk of infection and in order to prevent the coronavirus. However, political prisoners, i.e. dissenters, journalists and human rights activists, "terrorists" and sex offenders - provided they have "violated the conscience of society" - are to be excluded from the new legal regulation. The prisoners in Batman had protested against this.
The riot had been suppressed by Turkish security forces using violence and tear gas. During the night, more than 400 prisoners were transferred to Amed. Here they are said to have been beaten up, sometimes severely, by the staff and wardens of the Type T prison.