Report reveals violence against minors in Muğla prison
İsmail Saymaz - MUĞLA
A juvenile prisoner relatively older than the other juveniles held was punished for “sexual violence,” said the report, prepared by the National Human Rights Institution of Turkey (TİHK) upon rumors that four minors in the prison were exposed to rape and torture.
Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy and a member of the Parliamentary Committee for Inspecting Prisons Nurettin Demir claimed that four of the prison’s inmates aged 12 to 15 had been raped and tortured, according to a daily Habertürk report dated Feb. 27.
The report said the prison was operating at nearly double its actual capacity. The prison had a capacity to host 400 prisoners only when its construction was complete. The prison administration, however, increased its capacity to 728, though there were no provisions made for the increase.
Noting the lack of a minor-only dormitory, the report said minor and adult prisoners sometimes stayed in the same dormitories, which does strictly not comply with prison law.
“Despite the existence of articles in prison law that rule minors and adults to be placed in separate dormitories, it has been revealed minor prisoners stay with adult personnel dealing with in-prison services. This, even if it lasted for a very short while, is not acceptable,” the report said.
According to the report, there were only two dormitories available for minor prisoners; minors with disputes were taken outside to calm down but then put back in the same dormitory afterwards, a practice that could invoke further confrontation.
As of the date of TİHK’s committee observation, the prison hosts 914 male adults, 33 female adults and seven child inmates.
A case of physical violence was also reported in the report, after prison officials checking on the juvenile dormitory saw all the dormitory’s inmates crying. The minors in question admitted to the occurrence of a physical fight between them, leaving faces pounded and cheeks bruised.