Turkey’s Ministry of Justice revealed that 8,521 inmates have been denied release by prison administration and oversight boards since 2021, sparking debate over alleged arbitrary delays for political prisoners, the Artı Gerçek news website reported on Thursday.
While nearly 199,000 prisoners have been released for good conduct, 8,521 were denied release. The data was provided in response to a question by pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) lawmakers during a meeting of the Human Rights Investigation Commission.
The administration and oversight boards have repeatedly delayed the release of inmates, citing “a lack of good behavior.”
“In many cases, political prisoners face continued detention with no clear rationale, portraying the boards as a tool of oppression,” said Nuray Çevirmen, spokesperson for the Human Rights Association’s (İHD) Prison Commission.
Administrative observation boards, review bodies established in Turkish prisons in January 2021, have been delaying the parole of prisoners by three to six months, raising concerns over multiple rights violations.
Critics argue that this discretionary system acts as a “parallel judiciary” and is particularly restrictive toward political prisoners.
Çevirmen pointed to instances where inmates were denied hearings or questioned about their political views. “In some prisons, inmates are asked if they ‘regret’ their actions as a condition for release, while others aren’t even brought before the boards.”
“Decisions are made to block releases based on political labels from decades-old charges,” Çevirmen said, highlighting cases of long-serving prisoners who face a denial of their release due to past affiliations.
Calling the situation a byproduct of Turkey’s authoritarian governance, Çevirmen urged a legal review of the boards’ role. “This is an assault on basic human rights. Lawyers, human rights-focused political groups and civil society must challenge these boards. Parliament needs to address these issues head-on, pushing for oversight and accountability,” she argued.
Turkey remains the leader in the number of prisoners in Europe, according to the 2022 Council of Europe (CoE) Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations report. In January 2022 Turkey accounted for over a third of all prisoners in CoE member states, having experienced a surge of 369 percent in its prison population between 2005 and 2022.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has allocated 13.7 billion lira for the construction of 12 new prisons in 2024. There were 405 prisons in the country as of October 2023.
As part of a crackdown launched by Erdoğan in the aftermath of an attempted coup on July 15, 2016, Turkey jailed tens of thousands of people on terrorism-related charges despite being merely critical of the government and not engaging in any criminal activity.
Although victims can include people detained or imprisoned on any grounds, several documents in recent years have indicated that the abuses are more pervasive and systematic when it comes to people imprisoned on political grounds such as their alleged ties to political and civil networks not approved of by the government.
