Family members of female inmates in central Turkey’s Çorum prison have complained of poor conditions and overcrowding, the Bold Medya news website reported.
Many inmates were sleeping on the floor or on filthy mattresses brought from the prison basement due to overcrowding. Furthermore, there have been frequent water outages, and some inmates claimed the guards had said the administration was turning off the water.
The women also faced other hurdles due to the cold and overcrowding. For instance, they were not given enough space to dry their clothes and had to collect them to make space for other inmates.
The inmates’ families called on the authorities to immediately attend to these problems.
In recent years, NGOs and international organizations have reported a number of problems related to prison conditions in Turkey, including overcrowding, poor hygiene, lack of access to proper medical care and lack of adequate nutrition.
Turkey is by far the leader in the number of prisoners in Europe, according a 2022 report released by the Council of Europe. The country witnessed a 369 percent surge in its prison population between 2005 and 2022, surpassing all other European countries in terms of the rate of increase.
While the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been advertising its large-scale construction plans for new prisons, the authorities have generally been ignoring complaints and reports regarding the unfavorable conditions in the existing prisons.
