BY OKTAY EKSI
HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi comments on the improvement of Turkish prisons. A summary of his column is as follows:
Before Professor Hikmet Sami Turk became justice minister under Bulent Ecevit’s government, the inmates in Turkey had been controlling our nation’s prisons for nearly 15 years. The warden, guards, etc. were effectively servants of the convicts. Would you expect that such an atmosphere would be able to change in just a few years? When I read the news headlined ‘Bayrampasa Prison’ in today’s Hurriyet, I was convinced that this problem has actually been successfully solved. In other words, from now on the state is the dominant actor in prisons.
As most readers may know, criminals convicted of terrorist offenses were transferred to the newly built F-type prisons on Dec. 19, 2002. The system of prison wards, which was the reason for the domination of the inmates, thus came to an end.
Then Justice Minister Turk provided convicts and prisoners with certain rights which had never before been guaranteed. For example, he gave them the right to seek redress for alleged mistreatment by applying directly to judges. He set up a system whereby the prisoners’ conditions are inspected by Monitoring Councils at least once every two months.
All this was actually achieved by three brave men. As justice minister, Turk determinedly applied himself to solve the political and legal aspects of the problem. Prisons and Penitentiaries Director Ali Suat Ertosun assumed the duty of improving the physical structure and administration of the prisons, and Istanbul Republican Chief Prosecutor Ferzan Citici improved the situation at Bayrampasa Prison.
As a matter of fact, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CTP) no longer decries the ‘desperate situation’ of our prisons after visiting and seeing them. How about that? Don’t you think this example holds a very important lesson for all of us, showing that it’s possible to actually solve our problems instead of endlessly putting them off?
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION