Jan 6, 2001

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Amnesty International and the New York-based Human Rights
Watch on Saturday called for an independent investigation into torture allegations at some of
Turkey's prisons.

Representatives of the two human rights groups currently visiting Turkey said they had not
been given access to the prisons, where inmates were transferred last month from other
prisons after a four-day clash that left 32 people dead.

Jonathan Sugden of Human Rights Watch and Heidi Wedel of Amnesty International held
talks with lawyers, doctors, relatives of the inmates, and three prisoners released from the
new penitentiaries.

"These sources consistently indicate that the prisoners were beaten and some tortured before,
during and after the transfers to the prisons," the groups said in a statement released
Saturday.

The statement alleged that prisoners were stripped after they were transferred to the new
prisons and "subjected to rape with a truncheon," or nightstick. However, it added, the
claims could not be backed up because officials ignored prisoners' lawyers' requests for
forensic exams.

In a statement Saturday, the Justice Ministry rejected the charges and said three chief
inspectors had been appointed to investigate the allegations.

Soldiers stormed 20 prisons last month to end a two-month-long hunger strike launched by
leftist prisoners protesting government plans to transfer them from large wards to small cells.
Thirty inmates and two soldiers died in the raids. Many of the inmates set themselves on fire.

Sugden said an investigation should be launched into the raids. Nineteen prisoners have died
of burns. Eleven inmates were killed either by fellow inmates or by troops.

Inmates -- linked to an armed leftist group that has claimed the killings of generals and
business owners -- said they feared abuse by guards in the one- or three-person cells. The
government said it could not control the wards that were run like indoctrination
centers.

Authorities transferred more than 1,000 prisoners into cells after the raids.

The human rights groups said the prisoners were being held in solitary isolation, which they
said can amount to inhumane and degrading treatment. They called on Turkish authorities to
allow prisoners to leave their cells and associate with each other during the day.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com