RECOMMENDATIONS

Human Rights Watch Recommendations to the Turkish Authorities
1. Abolish solitary and small-group isolation throughout the Turkish prison system.

2. As an interim measure at Edirne, Kandira, and Sincan F-type Prisons, open the doors to cells within each separate group of six three-person units and in each separate group of three solitary units during daylight hours. This will permit some relief to groups of eighteen and three prisoners by permitting them to associate with one another. Steps should also be taken quickly to lift the isolation regime and to implement a proper program of out-of-cell activities.

3. Ensure that prisoners are not subjected to ill-treatment by guards. Ensure that all allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners are promptly investigated and that those found responsible are promptly brought to justice.

4. Establish regulations for the operation of the new prisons which are consistent with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. The rules emphasize the importance of contact with the outside world, the rehabilitative potential of imprisonment, and the need for access to constructive work, education, and recreation. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has recommended that prisoners must be permitted to spend "a reasonable part of the day (eight hours or more) outside their cells, engaged in purposeful activity of a varied nature." (See CPT report to the Swedish government (CPT/Inf (92) 4 [EN]; March 12, 1992, Para 160).

5. Local bar associations, medical chambers, and human rights organizations must be afforded the broadest possible access to the new prisons to ensure that prisoners are not subject to ill-treatment or other abuses, and to ensure that arrangements for out of cell time are not eroded.

6. Establish prison visiting boards to inspect and report on conditions in prisons. The boards must be convincingly independent from the authorities that run the prisons.

7. Ensure that all prisoners, irrespective of whether they are on hunger-strike, are given necessary medical care upon request.

8. Ensure that families and lawyers visiting prisoners are not subjected to unnecessarily grueling or humiliating security checks, and that they are protected from the weather while waiting outside and inside the prison.

9. Investigate allegations that gendarmes who entered prisons on December 19, 2000 committed arbitrary killings and used excessive and indiscriminate force during their intervention, and that they tortured and beat prisoners after capture, during transfer, and on arrival at the F-type prisons. In view of the importance of the case, the difficulty in securing and protecting evidence, and past difficulties in opening prosecutions into other killings of inmates during prison incursions, this investigation should be conducted by a commission composed of persons recognized for their expertise, impartiality, and independence. The commission should be fully resourced, with powers to summon and protect witness, and demand information from official bodies. Where the commission obtains evidence which indicates that individuals are responsible for killing or wounding through the negligent or careless use of force or firearms, or for carrying out deliberate killings, or where superior officers have given orders which resulted in such conduct, that evidence must be submitted to the public prosecution service in order that those individuals or superior officers can be brought to justice.

10. Authorize publication of the seven outstanding CPT reports relating to visits dating back more than a decade. Circumstances suggest that the reports most relevant to the current prison crisis are those relating to the July 2000 and December 2000/January 2001 visits.

Human Rights Watch Recommendations to the Council of Europe
1. The Committee of Ministers should urge the Turkish government, in the strongest terms, to authorize publication of the seven outstanding reports on visits by the CPT, and in particular those relating to the July 2000 and the December 2000/January 2001 visits.

2. The Committee of Ministers should also closely monitor the Turkish government's implementation of the CPT's recommendations concerning the F-type prisons, including the repeated emphasis on a program of out-of-cell activities.

3. Council of Europe members should raise Turkey's ongoing prison crisis in the weekly meetings of the Committee of Ministers.