Twenty young women were subjected to strip-searches at Şakran Women’s Prison in western Turkey this summer, a pro-Kurdish lawmaker has alleged, the Bold news website reported.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights advocate and lawmaker with the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), said he met with several inmates during a visit to Şakran prison in Izmir province, where he learned that female detainees had been forced to undergo degrading strip-searches upon arrival.
“Twenty young women were forced to endure this humiliating treatment. Some lawmakers in parliament say strip-searches don’t exist. Let them come to Şakran,” he said.
Reports of strip-searches in Turkey’s prisons and detention centers have circulated for years, particularly among women accused of ties to the faith-based Gülen movement or those detained during political protests. Rights groups say complaints are often dismissed, and detainees who speak out face disciplinary investigations by prison authorities.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by the late Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members and designated it as a terrorist organization in May 2016. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding.
Government officials have repeatedly denied the practice. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç has insisted that strip-searches do not occur in Turkey’s prisons or during police custody. In 2020 ruling party lawmaker Özlem Zengin sparked criticism after accusing women who reported being strip-searched of being “dishonorable.”
Despite these denials, rights advocates say the practice persists. Earlier this year, demonstrators arrested during protests against Turkish trade with Israel and rallies supporting Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu — a leading rival of President Erdoğan — also reported being subjected to strip-searches while in custody.
According to Turkish regulations, strip-searches can only be conducted in exceptional cases, such as when there are credible indications that the person has contraband materials on their person. In such cases, the search must be conducted in a manner so as not to humiliate the individual and must be performed as quickly as possible. When there is a credible suspicion that something is hidden inside the person’s body, officers are required to ask the person to remove it themselves and inform them that if they disobey, the removal will be performed by the prison doctor.
Among the women Gergerlioğlu spoke with at Şakran was 24-year-old university student Süeda Güngör, who he said was among those subjected to a strip-search. Like many of the women who have reported such treatment in recent years, she had been arrested on charges of alleged ties to the Gülen movement.
Her arrest came shortly after she had campaigned for the release of her father, İbrahim Güngör, 72, who died on September 7. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and prostate problems and had been hospitalized several times in prison before his death. Despite his daughter’s months-long campaign for his release, Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) had ruled in April that İbrahim Güngör was fit to remain in prison.
Gergerlioğlu said Süeda was denied the chance to properly mourn her father. When she was permitted to attend his funeral, she was escorted in handcuffs by gendarmes and paraded in front of neighbors, treatment he described as “a separate trauma.” He said the humiliation, combined with the strip-search she endured at Şakran, left her severely distressed.
“To deny a daughter the right to grieve her father and to subject her and others to degrading strip-searches is outright cruelty,” he said.
