07/05/2024 | Writer: Kaos GL
Prison Insider, an organization dedicated to assessing prison conditions and advocating for prisoners’ rights, has released its latest “Country Profile” report. This comprehensive document offers in-depth insights into a nation's penal and detention policies, legal structures, and the prevailing conditions within its prison facilities.
Civil Society in the Penal System Association (CİSST), contributed to the report prepared by Prison Insider.
The report also includes data on LGBTIQ+ prisoners in Turkey.
The report highlighted the extensive targeting of individuals within the LGBTIQ+ community by governmental authorities. Drawing from data provided by ILGA World, the report featured the following statements:
“ILGA World explains that ‘many of those targeted are accused of breaching broad provisions in the Penal Code—such as Article 225, which prohibits ‘impudent acts’—and many of those arrested over this period have also been charged with violating the Law on Misdemeanours (2005), the Public Meetings and Demonstrations Law (1983), and the Law on Public Health (1930), also called the ‘General Hygiene Law’.”
“LGBTI+ prisoners refuse to go to the hospital out of fear for the treatment they will receive from other male prisoners”
It is highlighted in the report that LGBTQI+ prisoners were subjected to de facto isolation and they were deprived of social and physical activities, their right to work, and their right to socialize and communicate with others:
“LGBTQI+ prisoners placed in solitary confinement have limited access to healthcare. They sometimes refuse to go to the hospital out of fear for the treatment they will receive from other male prisoners in the transfer vehicle with them. CİSST observes that LGBTQI+ prisoners are frequently transferred, making it difficult to receive visits and to build solidarity with other prisoners.”
“Complaints are ineffective and lead to more violence”
Within the scope of the report it is stated that the prison administration is built on a binary and heteronormative system. Pointing out that there was no policy or staff training to identify and address LGBTQI+ specific needs, the report included the following statements:
“LGBTQI+ prisoners face discrimination and abuse, both by other prisoners and by the staff. They may also be subject to discrimination by lawyers, judges or courts. When held in solitary confinement, these prisoners are particularly vulnerable to ill-treatment, harassment, rape, and physical or psychological torture from prison officers. They also tend to be more isolated from contact with the outside world. Complaints are ineffective and lead to more violence. In some cases, prisoners were transferred to another prison following such incidents.”
“Prisoners cannot always access clothes, hygiene and cosmetic products allowing them to express their gender identity”
In the report, according to the data of CISST, it is highlighted that LGBTI+ prisoners were sometimes prevented from writing letters:
“CİSST reports that they communicate using coded language in their messages, because they do not feel safe openly communicating considering their letters will be read by the prison administration.”
Noting that LGBTIQ+ prisoners cannot always access to clothes, hygiene and cosmetic products allowing them to express their gender identity, the report includes the following statements:
“Prisoners cannot always access clothes, hygiene and cosmetic products allowing them to express their gender identity. The Human Rights Association (İHD) further reports that transgender women held in male facilities are not allowed to grow their hair long and transgender men held in female facilities are not allowed to cut their hair short.”
“Transgender women accommodated in male facilities are subject to the same conditions of detention as men”
According to the report; trans men and trans women are actually under isolation:
“Transgender prisoners whose gender identity does not match their ID are usually placed in special wards or single cells to be kept apart from the general population. Transgender men or trans male prisoners are placed in de facto isolation, whether they are in male or female prisons. Transgender women accommodated in male facilities are subject to the same conditions of detention as men.”
The report emphasized that transgender prisoners are not entitled to customized searches:
“Prisoners are searched by a male officer if they are held in a men’s prison and by a female officer if held in a women’s prison, regardless of their gender identity. LGBTQI+ prisoners are subjected to arbitrary body and strip searches.1 Trans visitors are subjected to the same practices.”
Furthermore, the report notes a severe lack of access to psychological health services and support for transgender prisoners during transition. Within its pages, the report features the following statements:
“Prison psychologists are not trained to provide them with such support. Legal and medical gender affirmation processes were suspended for about two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Tags: human rights, health
