İHD and TİHV: 2,278 people tortured, 11 people abducted in Turkey in 2017

The Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) on Saturday said 2,278 people were tortured and 11 abducted in Turkey during the first 11 months of 2017, Gazeteduvar reported.

Releasing a human rights report in Turkey under an ongoing state of emergency, the IHD and TİHV noted that human rights violations have reached worrying levels in Turkey. Recalling that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has issued 28 decree-laws since July 20, 2016, and that only five of them were approved on time by Parliament despite the fact that all legislation must be approved in accordance with the Turkish Constitution, the IHD and TİHV underlined that with its state of emergency decrees the government has created guarantees for state officials that they will not be prosecuted for violations committed during the period of emergency rule.

According to the report issued by the two rights organizations, security forces killed 36 people and wounded 12 in extrajudicial killings and by firing arbitrarily into a crowd on the pretext that they did not obey an order to stop, in the first 11 months of 2017.

A total of 695 people including 183 soldiers, 460 militants and 52 civilians were killed and 310 injured during clashes in Turkey.

Twenty-three people including six children were killed and 46 injured in accidents involving armored security vehicles. Six including five children were killed and 25 were injured in explosions of landmines and other uncontrolled explosives across the country.

At least 322 women and 68 children died as a result of domestic violence in 2017.

Some 1,851 were killed in industrial accidents.

A total of 570 people applied to the TİHV as victims of torture; 2,278 faced torture and maltreatment, 423 while in detention.

According to the İHD report, by May 30, 2017, 11 abduction or enforced disappearance cases had been reported in Turkey.

As of Nov. 1, there were 230,735 people in Turkish prisons, including 1,037 with health problems. The prison population numbered 178,089 in 2015 and 154,179 in 2014.

Meanwhile, TİHV Diyarbakır Representative, lawyer Barış Yavuz, has stated in an interview to pro-Kurdish Fırat news agency that with the state of emergency the Turkish prisons are severely overcrowded, with the greatest number of arrestees and convicts in the history of Turkey. Yavuz has also said the torture in detention continues in prisons. He has also added that isolation in prisons is also on the rise as a method of torture.

Yavuz has also said that TİHV received 233 applications in 2017 from people who have been tortured. He added that 83 of these applications are made by the people who have been tortured this year. 59 people appealed after being released from prison.

“This is just the number of people who have appealed to us. Out of the thousands who have been tortured, a very small percentage has appealed with us. Torture in prisons has severely increased, but as we are not allowed to enter prisons and conduct inquiries, we can only proceed over the applications we receive. There are prisons being built constantly. And they are large scale, campus prisons,” said Yavuz. (SCF with turkishminute.com)

Take a second to support Stockholm Center for Freedom on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!