Imprisoned writer, activist and journalist Celalettin Can has sent an open letter addressed to members of parliament in which he detailed the mistreatment of political prisoners and the denial of probation, the Bianet news website reported.
“Are you aware of the practices of prison boards?” Can wrote. “Do you know how many prisoners died behind bars in the last year?”
He said prison boards have been arbitrarily denying the right to probation to political prisoners, putting their lives in jeopardy.
“They are chaired by a prison prosecutor. And then there is a warden, a deputy warden, an administrative officer, a teacher, a psychologist, a head guard and a technical person. Eight people decide everything. There is no court. What do these people have to do with us? Who is the technical person, for instance, and how come he gets to make a decision about me?”
Can said the decisions of these boards often violate precedents set by the Supreme Court of Appeals regarding probation.
He was among the 49 people who were prosecuted for acting in solidarity with Özgür Gündem, a pro-Kurdish newspaper that was closed by government decree in October 2016 after a failed coup that gave the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vast authority under a subsequent state of emergency.
As part of the solidarity campaign, journalists, activists and other participants symbolically served as the newspaper’s editor-in-chief.
For his participation, Can was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda.
Following the coup attempt in July 2016, the Turkish government summarily shut down by executive decrees nearly 200 media outlets for alleged ties to terrorism. Many of the shuttered outlets were part of the Kurdish media, accused of spreading propaganda on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an insurgent group designated as a terrorist organization.
Turkey is often described as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists, and it was ranked 165th out of 180 countries in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
