Faces of Manisa prisoners rendered unrecognizable due to torture, lawyer says
Date posted: October 8, 2016
The faces of people held in a Manisa prison have become unrecognizable due to heavy torture, Seda Tanrıkulu, a lawyer representing some of the prisoners, told the Turkish media.
“When I met with prisoners, there were bruises on the face of D.K., made by the boots of officials,” Tanrıkulu said.
Stating that prison guards reportedly banged the heads of prisoners on the wall with their hands cuffed behind their backs, she added, “The face of O.K. was unrecognizable due scars made by nightsticks.”
“Political [prisoners] are being subjected to torture,” said a man under arrest, in an obvious cry for help, as he was being forced into a police car after a medical checkup in Manisa province, earlier this week.
Apart from those already under arrest, Turkey has detained 51,000 people and arrested 27,000 others over alleged links to the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of masterminding a July 15 coup attempt, over the past two-and-a-half-months.
The AK Party government sees the corruption probes as a coup launched against it by the Hizmet movement and it has convinced itself that the probes are a defensive move in response to the effort to close prep schools. Already Erdoğan has presented movement supporters as spies and succeeded in dividing the state bureaucracy, families, friends and neighbors in the country. Unfortunately, this polarization in society is quite dangerous.
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Holding ia press conference in light of the recent row between the government and the Hizmet movement on Wednesday, Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) President Mustafa Yeşil asdi the Hizmet movement has not changed its principles in the last half century but the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been transformed by the state and lost its reformist nature.
UN Body Asks Immediate Release Of Arbitrarily Jailed Police Chief
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CSOs slam ongoing black propaganda against Hizmet movement
The Law and Democracy Platform, which includes 60 CSOs in İzmir province, held a press conference to protest the polarizing language used by government officials. The representative of the platform, Ömer Mustafa Aytekin, said there have been very unpleasant developments that risk democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
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