_ From: Press Agency Ozzgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 03:31:14 +0200 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Ozgurluk] Turkey/Police State - AFP Thursday July 26, 11:44 PM Turkish minister accused of 'police state' over prison crisis ISTANBUL, July 26 (AFP) - A senior Turkish deputy accused Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk on Thursday of running a police state in his handling of the country's prison crisis, which has claimed the lives of more than 60 people, the Anatolia news agency reported. "It's a great misfortune that Turkey has a justice minister who commits legal errors and disowns declarations made in the name of the state," said Sema Piskinsut, a former head of the country's parliamentary commission on human rights. "The people expect a justice minister who serves a legal state not a police state," she said. A hunger strike against planned new prisons has so far claimed the lives of 29 prisoners and members of their families. The new jails will have smaller cells, which campaigners say will make harassment and even torture at the hands of prison guards more widespread. Turkish security forces stormed 20 prisons in December in an effort to break the strike in raids which resulted in the killing of a further 30 prisoners and two police officers. However the protests have not stopped the new style three-person cells being brought in to replace the older dormitory prisons, which hold up to 60 prisoners in a single room. But in a minor concession, Turkey has said it will not build any more of the controversial jails once its current building programme is completed. Piskinsut's outburst is not her first brush with controversy. Last year she published a parliamentary report into mistreatment in Turkey's prisons and police stations, revealing instruments of torture recovered from surprise raids on jails and police headquarters. A state prosecutor recently demanded that Piskinsut's parliamentary immunity be lifted so she could face charges for withholding evidence after she refused to reveal the identity of prisoners who had denounced acts of torture against those in the country's jails. "These are political allegations," Piskinsut said in the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet on Thursday, adding that the report had been edited by several other members of the parliamentary commission and was published over a year ago. But in the same edition, Justice Minister Turk seemed to support the state prosecutor, saying that those claiming to have suffered torture should be identified and appear before a judge. Piskinsut is a member of the Party of the Democratic Left of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
