Coronavirus breaks into Turkish prisons and kills three prisoners

The coronavirus pandemic doesn't understand about walls or prisons. For the last few hours, prisoners in Turkey's prisons have been putting a face to a long-ignored enemy. Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul on Monday reported the death of three prisoners due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Seventeen convicts in five open penal institutions were diagnosed with COVID-19. Three of them lost their lives during treatment,” the politician lamented during a press conference. He explained that 79 prison officials had also tested positive, along with a total of 80 judges and prosecutors, judicial personnel and forensic science personnel. 

In the last 24 hours, health authorities in Turkey have confirmed a total of 4,093 cases of coronavirus and 98 deaths in the country. This situation and the rapid spread of COVID-19 in prisons has led the Turkish Parliament to pass a law allowing the release of thousands of prisoners. The aim of this new law, which leaves out journalists, politicians and others accused of terrorism, is to decongest the country's prisons in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Justice and Development Party of Turkey (AKP) and its allies in the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) supported the law project, which was approved with 279 votes in favour and 51 against, according to the vice-president of the Parliament, Sureyya Sadi Bilgic.

Turkey will temporarily release about 45,000 prisoners and another 45,000 will be released permanently. In total, around 90,000 prisoners will leave the prisons in Turkey over the next few months, under the terms of this law. According to the data available to the international organization Human Rights Watch, the prison system in Turkey has a capacity of 235,431 prisoners, although in November 2019 it hosted more than 286,000 prisoners. 

Those convicts who have been temporarily released will have to remain under house arrest for at least two months. If the outbreak hasn't gone away in this time, the period of house arrest will be extended to three times, two months each time. If this scenario materializes, the prisoners will remain outside until November 2020, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported. 

This law has been criticized by the main opposition leaders for “excluding those jailed for terrorism charges”. Among these prisoners are journalists and politicians who have been accused of having links to terrorist movements, following the attempted coup d'état in 2016.  Since then, the number of prisoners has risen to almost 300,000, making Turkey's prisons the second largest prison population in Europe and the continent's most overcrowded prison system in January 2019, according to data published by the Council of Europe. 

Erdal Dogan, a lawyer specializing in human rights, warned in the newspaper Al-Monitor of the risk that the virus of COVID-19 represented for the prisons of Turkey. “The ventilation works in a closed-circuit system, recycling the same air, and there are tens of thousands of prison officials who have daily contact with their families, who can contaminate each other and the prisoners,” he said. 

In recent weeks, several human rights organizations have called on the Turkish Government to release journalists, activists, academics and others imprisoned solely for their political views.  “The COVID-19 pandemic has the power to turn a prison sentence into a death sentence,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Prisoners who have been imprisoned for little more than their political views should be able to benefit from the early release law,” he said a few days ago. 

In this context, Ahmed Davutoglu, leader of the Future Party, expressed his criticism of the law, which he considers “a secret amnesty, which will benefit bribery, gangs and people involved in crimes of corruption, while political opponents and prisoners of conscience will be excluded,” according to the daily Al-Ain.   

Meanwhile, the leader of the Turkish opposition, Kemal Kılıçdarıoglu leader of the Republican People's Party, insisted that “this law is unfair, and Erdogan knows it well”. For his part, the former deputy minister, head of the opposition party Democracy and Progress, Ali Babacan, previously confirmed his rejection of the law. “No one can lose their basic right because they are in prison or in jail. There are two parties that are trying to manage the process without listening to anyone else in the Turkish parliament,” he said. 

Amnesty International has warned in recent weeks about overcrowded conditions in Turkey's prisons. This situation is dangerous for prisoners who are at risk, due to the serious lack of hygiene. The new law passed by the Turkish Parliament has been criticized for not allowing the release of several categories of prisoners. These include those on remand, that is to say those who have not yet been convicted of any offence or those who have been sentenced under anti-terrorist laws, such as journalists, lawyers and political and human rights activists who have been jailed for the simple reason of expressing their opinion. 

Last Friday, Turkey announced a strict 48-hour curfew in at least 31 of its provinces. Over the past few weeks, Ankara has imposed strict measures to curb the spread of the virus, banning all public gatherings, closing schools and imposing a curfew on citizens under 20 and over 65. In addition, when the COVID-19 virus arrived in the country, the Ministry of Justice suspended all family visits until mid-April.

Turkey has arrested, prosecuted and convicted thousands of people for their alleged political links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the country's leftist revolutionary groups or their alleged affiliation with the Fethullah Gülen movement, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization and accuses of orchestrating the failed coup attempt of 2016. 

In response, the Council of Europe's European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has recommended to governments to offer alternatives to imprisonment to alleviate overcrowding and provide “COVID-19 testing and access to intensive care” for the most vulnerable, according to Human Rights Watch. Before the coronavirus pandemic changed the world as we know it today, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey's failure to provide adequate medical care and conditions to sick prisoners constituted “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment”. 

Thousands of people whose only crime has been to show their opinion have ended up locked up within the walls of the more than 250 prisons that exist around the entire Eurasian nation. The country's government is preventing them from leaving these prisons, even in a health emergency such as the one we are facing. This new law has turned Turkey into a country that is currently divided between the victims of government repression and the victims of the coronavirus.