ISTANBUL – Turkey on Wednesday announced plans to release some 38,000 inmates from overcrowded prisons as the penal system struggles to cope with a flood of new detainees after last month’s failed coup.
The eligible prisoners will be freed under judicial supervision similar to probation or parole. Excluded are those convicted of terrorism, murder, sexual assault and other violent crimes, officials said.
“This measure is not an amnesty,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag posted Wednesday on Twitter. But the move to free 38,000 prisoners marked only “the first stage” of the new measure, Bozdag said.
It does not apply to those who committed crimes after July 1, officials said. Convicts must have served more than half their sentences or have up to two years left on sentences for mostly nonviolent crimes.
The decree was published Wednesday morning in Turkey’s Official Gazette, but the government did not disclose reasons for the move.
Rights groups have slammed Turkey’s government for inhumane prison conditions, particularly in the past month as authorities detained more than 35,000 people in connection with the July coup attempt. Nearly 12,000 of them were released, but 18,000 others have been formally arrested.
The majority of those detained have been accused of links to U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey blames for the coup. The crackdown has reached every sector in Turkey, including the army, security branches, universities, schools, hospitals and the media.
Turkey’s jails can now accommodate roughly 180,000 prisoners. But the prisons were already over capacity when the government embarked on its sweeping, post-coup purge, according to the London-based Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), a think tank and prison watchdog.
Turkey’s government announced in January that it would build 165 additional prisons to accommodate the growing inmate population. In 2000, prisoners in Turkish jails numbered fewer than 50,000, according to ICPR.
But since the failed putsch, in which rogue soldiers seized tanks and fighter jets in their attempt to overthrow the government, rights groups have documented horrific abuses in Turkish detention centers, including sports centers and courthouses. Judges and prosecutors also have been suspended, detained or arrested during the crackdown, creating a backlog in the courts and raising fears of minimal judicial oversight at a time of widespread repression.
Amnesty International recently said it had gathered “credible evidence that detainees in Turkey are subjected to beatings and torture, including rape.”
Police in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, “are holding detainees in stress positions for up to 48 hours, denying them food, water and medical treatment,” Amnesty’s report said.
The Turkish government has denied that abuses are taking place.
“Amnesty’s claims do not reflect the reality,” a Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with government protocol.
Picture: AFP
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Erin Cunningham
