Posted on 07/15/2017 5:26:30 AM PDT by Texas Fossil
ISTANBUL — I have been a member of Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul for the opposition Republican People’s Party for the past six years. It has forced me to become a specialist in the Turkish prison system as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) government has increasingly persecuted politicians, activists, professionals and all sorts of citizens who oppose his rule and arrested thousands after the failed coup attempt last July.
I began by visiting five political prisoners in 2011. Now I visit over 50, who form a tiny fraction of the detainees. Among those I visit are journalists from the newspapers Cumhuriyet and Birgun, which are critical of Mr. Erdogan’s government. One of them is Musa Kart, a cartoonist at Cumhuriyet, who has been imprisoned along with 11 colleagues since October; they are facing the charge of “aiding an armed terrorist organization without being its members.” Prosecutors are demanding up to 29-year prison sentences.
The charges against the arrested writers and journalists are farcical at times. The criminal evidence against Atilla Tas, an imprisoned columnist, included one of his tweets: “Edison wouldn’t have invented the ‘light bulb’ if he saw these days!” The electoral symbol of the A.K.P. is a light bulb. The court ordered Mr. Tas’s release on his first hearing in late March. The judges in his case were removed from office the same day. He was rearrested in a new investigation as he prepared for his release from a prison in Istanbul. He is still in jail, waiting for his next trial.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is stated that Istanbul is the location of the writer. And that Safak Pavey is a member of the Turkish Parliament from the Republican People’s Party. He is a brave man.
The description of the conditions in Turkish prisons is true. I have read articles about the abuses there that are much worse than this article describes. So I don't question the conditions the writer describes.
It is no wonder that the UN Human rights reports are so bad relating to Turkey. That report is not just about the prison conditions, but about shelling of entire towns in Turkey to rubble.
Turkey's alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorists is apparent, and the alliance with other Jihadi elements too.
Turkey Ping
I wonder how these prisons had so much room... Maybe they spent years dumping them into Europe.
There are so many writers, journalists and other professionals in Turkish prisons that 38,000 inmates convicted of fraud, rape, theft, looting and extortion were released before finishing their sentences to make room.
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