Diyarbakır Prison

Diyarbakır Prison (Turkish: Diyarbakır Cezaevi; Kurdish: Girtîgeha Amedê) is a prison located in Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey. It was established in 1980 as an E-type prison by the Ministry of Justice. After the September 12, 1980 Turkish coup d'état, the facility was transferred to military administration and became a Martial Law Military Prison (Turkish: Sıkıyönetim Askeri Cezaevi). Control of the prison was returned to the Ministry of Justice on May 8, 1988.

The capacity of Diyarbakır E-type Prison is 744. However, the prison is sometimes overcrowded. When the Human Rights Commission in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) visited the prison in October 1996 it had a capacity of 650 and was accommodating 942 prisoners. Diyarbakır D-type prison, which is provided for political prisoners can hold 688 people.

What has been called "the period of barbarity" (tr: vahşet dönemi) or "the hell of Diyarbakır" (tr: Diyarbakır cehennemi), refers to the early and mid-1980s (in particular the years between 1981–1984) where the prisoners in the newly built Diyarbakır Military Prison No. 5 were exposed to horrific acts of systematic torture. According to The Times, it is among the "ten most notorious jails in the world." Between 1981 and 1984, 34 prisoners lost their lives.

In August, 2009, plans were announced to convert the facility into a school. The idea was criticized by Kurdish activists who wanted the prison to become a museum of human rights abuses. Although construction on a larger prison outside of the city has already begun, no decision over what to do with the existing Diyarbakir prison has been made. Kurdish activists and politicians find their plans for a human rights museum, known as the "Museum of Shame," largely ignored by the state government. As of now, Diyarbakır is still a functioning prison.

History

In the 19th century, Diyarbakır prison was known throughout the Ottoman Empire as the home of harsh and based sentences given to political prisoners.

Early 1980s

After the military coup of 12 September 1980, the generals abolished parliament, suspended the Constitution and banned all political parties and trade unions, and most other organizations. Until the return of a democratic government in 1984, visits of civilians to prisoners, by family members as well as lawyers of the defense was prohibited. Tens of thousands of men and women were taken into custody. More than 30,000 were jailed in the first four months after the coup. During the following years, Amnesty International received thousands of allegations of torture including reports of over 100 deaths as a result of torture. Diyarbakır Prison became one of the most lasting symbols of the coup due to the reports of hundreds of prisoners being subjected to torture and execution. At the time, it was not allowed to speak in another language than Turkish, a rule, which was also upheld during visits, and Kurds were thought to be turkified. Inmates were obliged to memorize the Turkish national anthem and other Turkish nationalist songs.

Among Diyarbakır's better-known inmates are Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader Ahmet Turk; former DTP deputies Nurettin Yılmaz, Celal Paydaş, and Mustafa Çakmak; former mayor Mehdi Zana; Kurdish writer and intellectual Orhan Miroğlu; and Kurdish poet Yılmaz Odabaşı. Bedii Tan, the father of Kurdish writer Altan Tan lost his life in this prison as a result of torture.

Tortures

The prison wards used terms usually employed for acts of diversion and cleanness such as disco, welcome, theatre or bathroom for the different styles of torture they practiced. Among the most common practices were: severe and systematic beating; pulling of hair; being stripped naked; being blindfolded and hosed; solitary confinement; guards' insults; constant and relentless surveillance and intimidation; death threats; the obligation to salute Captain Esat Oktay Yıldıran's dog, a German shepherd called "Jo", which was trained to bite the genitals of naked prisoners; sleep, sensory, water and food deprivation for extensive periods; falaka (beating of the soles of feet), "Palestinian hangings" (hanging by the arms); stress positions or forcing prisoners to stand for long durations; excessive exercise in extreme temperatures; stretching, squeezing or crushing of limbs and genitals; piling of naked prisoners on top of each other; asphyxia and mock execution; electric shocks (specifically electrodes attached to genitals); burning with cigarettes; extraction of nails and healthy teeth; sexual humiliation and assault; rectal examinations; forcing prisoners to beat/sexually humiliate/rape or urinate on each other; rape or threat of rape of prisoners, or relatives of prisoners in their presence by prison guards; violent forcing of truncheon rectally; baths in prison sewers (referred to as "the disco" by the guards)."

Mehdi Zana, the former mayor of Diyarbakır, who spent eleven years in the prison, explains: "When a new prisoner arrived at the prison, Captain Esat met him at the entrance and then turned to a guard and said, 'Prepare him a bath; then take him to the dormitory.' This was a ritual. So almost twenty guards accompanied the prisoner. He received a good welcoming thrashing, and then he was dragged, unconscious, to the 'bath,' a bathtub full of shit in which they left him for a few hours." Businessman Selim Dindar said: "Before our detention we thought that torture was applied during interrogation and that the wards in prison were comfortable. But in Diyarbakır Prison we longed for the torture chambers of interrogation."

Among the large numbers of testimonies regarding that time only few have come from female prisoners staying in a separate ward. Nuran Çamlı Maraşlı is an example for it: "We were 75 women in a ward for 25 prisoners. As women we are not equal to men, but in Diyarbekir dungeon we were equal relating to torture, isolation, military drill etc. For years we did in prison what soldiers do in their barracks." Many books have been written on Diyarbakır Prison. Testimonies have also been published on the Internet and in the media. After the changes to the 1982 Constitution of Turkey in September 2010 hundreds of people who claim they were tortured at Diyarbakır Prison in the wake of the 1980 military coup have filed a series of criminal complaints at the local prosecutor's office to open a case against their abusers.

Deaths in Diyarbakır Prison

Following the military intervention of 1980 the number of people who died during interrogation or in prison increased. As a result of the unsanitary conditions and torture in prisons, 299 people died while incarcerated. Fourteen died during hunger strikes, 16 were shot to death because they were supposedly trying to escape from prison and 43 people committed suicide. On 18 May 1982, four young prisoners, Mahmut Zengin, Eşref Anyık, Ferhat Kurtay and Necmi Öner, rolled up in newspapers and sprayed with paint and holding hands, burned themselves alive in protest and have since become important figures in Kurdish collective memory and in the martyrdom discourse of the PKK. Like any other militant organization in Turkey the PKK calls all members who lose their lives in armed combat, but also in prison a martyr.

Not all prisoners who died in Diyarbakır Prison between 1981 and 1984 belonged to the PKK. Bedii Tan was an employee of a company that had been blackmailed by the PKK. Necmettin Büyükkaya, born in 1943 had started his political career in the Turkish Workers' Party (TİP). In 1969 he became the leader of the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (tr: Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları, DDKO). Later he joined the KDP in Turkey (T-KDP). Remzi Aytürk was affiliated to Rizgarî (Kurdish for Liberation) also known as Kurdistan Liberation Party (kr: Partiya Rizgariya Kurdistanê). Yılmaz Demir was on trial for membership of "Freedom Road" (tr: Özgürlük Yolu) later known as Socialist Party of Kurdistan. PSK (kr: Partiya Sosyaliste Kurdistana) not to be confused with the Revolutionary Party of Kurdistan, (kr: Partiya Şoreşa Kürdistan (PŞK) or even the PKK. İsmail Kıran (surname sometimes spelled Karak) and Orhan Keskin were alleged members of Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Path).

The prisoners that died in Diyarbakır Prison between 1981 and 1984 are:

Incident in 1996

On 24 September 1996 special team members, gendarmes and prison warders stormed Diyarbakır Prison killing 10 inmates and wounding 46 prisoners The prisoners Erhan Hakan Perişan, Cemal Çam, Hakkı Tekin, Ahmet Çelik, Edip Derikçe, Mehmet Nimet Çakmak, Rıdvan Bulut, Mehmet Kadri Gümüş, Kadri Demir and Mehmet Aslan were killed. There are conflicting reports as to what really happened on that day in Diyarbakır Prison. The press accounts have produced scenarios that …