---------- From: Press Agency Ozgurluk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 19:21:28 +0100 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: "[Ozgurluk.Org]" Turkish State lies: We did not torture/kill prisoners Turkey denies killings and torture of prisoners December 29, 2000 Web posted at: 1330 GMT ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) -- Turkish authorities have issued a flat denial of mounting allegations that they killed and tortured protesting prisoners during raids on prisons last week in which at least 31 people died. A justice ministry statement published by the semi-official Anatolian news agency late on Thursday follows accusations from prisoners freed by a mass amnesty. Friday's newspapers carried fresh claims by prisoners of torture during the raids. Security forces stormed 20 jails to enforce reforms intended to break up teeming and chaotic prison dormitories which have for years been off limits to warders and controlled by political groups or criminal gangs. Paramilitary police used tear gas and smashed holes in the walls and roofs of jail blocks to gain access. They later displayed arsenals of homemade weapons they say prisoners used to resist the raids, including flame-throwers, crossbows, makeshift rifles and swords. Cevdet Bayir, who was released from Gebze prison in Izmit near Istanbul, said his sister in the jail was still on the mass prisoners' hunger strike launched more than two months ago to protest against the prison reforms, which would replace the collective dormitories with smaller cells. "The soldiers fired at prisoners without warning," Bayir was quoted as saying in mainstream newspaper Cumhuriyet. "We demanded that the injured be taken to hospitals but they did not let anybody out before the operations ended... At the end of the 10-hour operation, the soldiers began hitting us with everything they had in their hands." "My sister is on a death fast in Gebze prison. They use sexual abuse on women and confiscate their valuables." Hayati Dervis, an inmate at Istanbul's Umraniye jail where leftists held out for four days and at least four prisoners died, said prisoners were tortured after their protests were broken up. "Our wrists were squeezed excessively with handcuffs. I still can't feel my fingers," he said. Officials say most of the 29 prisoners who died had set themselves on fire rather than end their protests, or been burned by other prisoners, but human rights groups dispute that account. Two paramilitary police also died. "It is fiction to say that some prisoners have been shot or burned to death (by security forces) during Operation Return to Life," the justice ministry statement said. However, Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk said last week some prisoners had been shot after setting themselves alight and running towards security forces on fire. "As seen by the eyes of the public and watched on TV stations as well, it is fresh in the memory how the prisoners were led to death by the leaders of terrorist organizations and were even set on fire by their own friends," the new statement said. "It is nothing but a deviation from reality to claim that prisoners were tortured," the ministry said, but added that the accusations were being investigated by state prosecutors. The mainstream Hurriyet newspaper quoted relatives of prisoners. "Their faces were unrecognizable. I could hardly stop myself from crying. They had been tortured," said Heval Durmus, a relative of an inmate at Izmit. Video footage taken by the paramilitary police during the raids showed burning prisoners stumbling out of the rubble of prisons, and security forces beating and kicking hunger strikers as they dragged them from the jail. Authorities say the new smaller cells will be easier to control, while the protesters say they will make prisoners more vulnerable to abuse by prison guards. Hundreds of prisoners have now been moved to the new prisons, partly because many old buildings were destroyed during the raids. Around 20,000 of a prison population of 72,000 have been released under an amnesty law which came into effect last week, part of measures to reform the overcrowded and chaotic prison system. -- Press Agency Ozgurluk In Support of the Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Struggle in Turkey http://www.ozgurluk.org DHKC: http://www.ozgurluk.org/dhkc