Diyarbakır Prison (; ) is a prison located in the city of Diyarbakır, in southeastern Turkey. It was established in 1980 as an E-type prison by the Ministry of Justice. After the September 12, 1980 Turkish coup d'état, the facility was transferred to military administration and became a Martial Law Military Prison (). Control of the prison was returned to the Ministry of Justice on May 8, 1988.
The capacity of Diyarbakır E-type Prison is 744. However, the prison is sometimes overcrowded. When the Human Rights Commission in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) visited the prison in October 1996 it had a capacity of 650 and was accommodating 942 prisoners. The Diyarbakır D-type prison, housing political prisoners, can hold 688 people.A list in excel format can be downloaded from the website of the General Directorate for Penal and Arrest Centres in the Ministry of Justice, said to be up-to-date as of 31 January 2011; accessed on 21 May 2011
What has been called "the period of barbarity" () or "the hell of Diyarbakır" (), refers to the early and mid-1980s (in particular the years between 1981 and 1984) where the prisoners in the newly built Diyarbakır Military Prison No. 5 were exposed to systematic torture.Welat Zeydanlıoğlu: Torture and Turkification in the Diyarbakır Military Prison , undated, accessed on 21 May 2011. More information on the author can be found at http://welatzeydanlioglu.wordpress.com/ . Sites to download the report as pdf file include Between 1981 and 1984, 34 prisoners died.Açılımda ilk adım: Diyarbakır Cezaevi taşınıyor CNN Türk of 22 August 2009; accessed on 21 May 2011 According to The Times, it is among the "ten most notorious jails in the world."
In August 2009, plans were announced to convert the facility into a school. The idea was criticized by Kurdish activists who wanted the prison to become a museum of human rights abuses."Turn Diyarbakır Prison into a Museum!" Bianet of 25 August 2009; accessed on 21 May 2011 Although construction on a larger prison outside of the city has already begun, no decision over what to do with the existing Diyarbakir prison has been made. Kurdish activists and politicians find their plans for a human rights museum, known as the "Museum of Shame," largely ignored by the state government. As of now, Diyarbakır is still a functioning prison.
History In the 19th century, Diyarbakır prison was known throughout the Ottoman Empire as the home of harsh and feared sentences given to political prisoners. It was established in the form of a modern prison in 1864. Early 1980s After the military coup of 12 September 1980, the generals abolished parliament, suspended the Constitution and banned all political parties and trade unions, and most other organizations.Briefing on the Turkey Campaign of Amnesty International in 1988; accessed on 21 May 2011 Until the return of a democratic government in 1984, visits of civilians to prisoners, by family members as well as lawyers of the defense was prohibited.Hakyemez, Serra (2017). p.108 Tens of thousands of men and women were taken into custody. More than 30,000 were jailed in the first four months after the coup. During the following years, Amnesty International received thousands of allegations of torture including reports of over 100 deaths as a result of torture. Diyarbakır Prison became one of the most lasting symbols of the coup due to the reports of hundreds of prisoners being subjected to torture and execution.Turkish coup victims demand their torturers be put on trial Hürriyet Daily News of 15 April 2011; accessed on 21 May 2011 At the time, it was not allowed to speak in another language than Turkish, a rule, which was also upheld during visits, and Kurds were thought to be Turkified.Hakyemez, Serra (2017). p.114 Inmates were obliged to memorize the Turkish national anthem and other Turkish nationalist songs.
Among Diyarbakır's better-known inmates are Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader Ahmet Turk; former DTP deputies Nurettin Yılmaz,You can find a 35 minute film with the testimony of the then deputy of the Republican People's Party (CHP) at YouTube; accessed on 21 May 2011 Celal Paydaş, and Mustafa Çakmak; former mayor Mehdi Zana; Kurdish writer and intellectual Orhan Miroğlu; and Kurdish poet Yılmaz Odabaşı. Bedii Tan,An eyewitness describes the cause of death in the article Üç yılını 'cehennem'de geçirdi , Daily Radikal of 23 June 2003; accessed on 21 May 2011 the father of Kurdish writer Altan Tan died in this prison as a result of torture.The death of Bedii Tan was listed by Amnesty International as one of the cases in which torturers were convicted.
Conditions The prison wards used terms usually employed for acts of diversion and cleanness such as disco, welcome, theatre or bathroom for the different styles of torture they practiced. Among the most common practices were: severe and systematic beating; pulling of hair; being stripped naked; being blindfolded and hosed; solitary confinement; guards' insults; constant and relentless surveillance and intimidation; death threats; the obligation to salute Captain Esat Oktay Yıldıran's dog, a German Shepherd called "Jo", which was trained to bite the genitals of naked prisoners; sleep, sensory, water and food deprivation for extensive periods; falaka (beating of the soles of feet), "Palestinian hangings" (hanging by the arms); stress positions or forcing prisoners to stand for long durations; excessive exercise in extreme temperatures; stretching, squeezing or crushing of limbs and genitals; piling of naked prisoners on top of each other; asphyxia and mock execution; electric shocks (specifically electrodes attached to genitals); burning with cigarettes; extraction of nails and healthy teeth; sexual humiliation and assault; rectal examinations; forcing prisoners to beat/sexually humiliate/rape or urinate on each other; rape or threat of rape of prisoners, or relatives of prisoners in their presence by prison guards; violent forcing of truncheon rectally; baths in prison sewers (referred to as "the disco" by the guards)."
Mehdi Zana, the former mayor of Diyarbakır, who spent eleven years in the prison, explains:
Businessman Selim Dindar said "Before our detention we thought that torture was applied during interrogation and that the wards in prison were comfortable. But in Diyarbakır Prison we longed for the torture chambers of interrogation."Üç yılını 'cehennem'de geçirdi , Daily Radikal of 23 June 2003; accessed on 21 May 2011
Among the large numbers of testimonies regarding that time only few have come from female prisoners staying in a separate ward. Nuran Çamlı Maraşlı is an example for it: "We were 75 women in a ward for 25 prisoners. As women we are not equal to men, but in Diyarbakır dungeon we were equal relating to torture, isolation, military drill etc. For years we did in prison what soldiers do in their barracks."Taken from part of her story DİYARBEKİR ZINDANINDA KADIN OLMAK, To be a woman in the dungeon of Diyarbekir, published on 5 November 2005; accessed on 21 May 2011 Many books have been written on Diyarbakır Prison.You can find pictures of the covers of some of it at diyarbakirzindani.com Testimonies have also been published on the Internet and in the media.You can search YouTube for "Diyarbakir" and "zindan" to see a collection of films After the changes to the 1982 Constitution of Turkey in September 2010 hundreds of people who claim they were tortured at Diyarbakır Prison in the wake of the 1980 military coup have filed a series of criminal complaints at the local prosecutor's office to open a case against their abusers.Turkish coup victims demand their torturers be put on trial; Hürriyet Daily News of 15 April 2011; accessed on 21 May 2011
Deaths in Diyarbakır Prison Following the military coup of 1980 the number of people who died during interrogation or in prison increased. As a result of the unsanitary conditions and torture in prisons, 299 people died while incarcerated. Fourteen died during hunger strikes, 16 were shot to death because they were supposedly trying to escape from prison and 43 people committed suicide.Victims seek legal redress for Diyarbakır Prison atrocities Today's Zaman of 12 October 2010; accessed on 21 May 2011 On 18 May 1982, four young prisoners, Mahmut Zengin, Eşref Anyık, Ferhat Kurtay and Necmi Öner,Details on these persons, called "martyrs" are presented on a page entitled Children of fire and Sun: The Four on an English page that appears to belong to the PKK; accessed on 21 May 2011 rolled up in newspapers and sprayed with paint and holding hands, burned themselves alive in protest and have since become important figures in Kurdish collective memory and in the martyrdom discourse of the PKK. Like any other militant organization in Turkey the PKK calls all members who lose their lives in armed combat, but also in prison a martyr.Several pages and sites such as http://www.sehid.net/ and http://www.hpg-sehit.com/ have been devoted to the martyrs (tr: şehitler)
Not all prisoners who died in Diyarbakır Prison between 1981 and 1984 belonged to the PKK. Bedii Tan was an employee of a company that had been blackmailed by the PKK.Details can be found in a book by Hasan Cemal, partly reproduced in the daily Vatan of 22 August 2009 under the heading of Hasan Cemal ‘Kürtler’ kitabında nasıl anlatmıştı? ; accessed on 23 May 2011 Necmettin Büyükkaya, born in 1943 had started his political career in the Turkish Workers' Party (TİP). In 1969 he became the leader of the Revolutionary Cultural Eastern Hearths (tr: Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları, DDKO). Later he joined the KDP in Turkey (T-KDP).Details to be found under Necmettin Büyükkaya kimdir? ; accessed on 23 May 2011 Remzi Aytürk was affiliated to Rizgarî (Kurdish for Liberation) also known as Kurdistan Liberation Party (kr: Partiya Rizgariya Kurdistanê).The activities of Remzi Aytürk are described in Turkish by İbrahim Güçlü on pages of rizgari.com , dated 5 January 2009, accessed on 23 May 2011. Background on the organization can be found in German Die Organisation Rizgari or Turkish Kürdistan’da ulusal örgütlenme tarihi , İbrahim Güçlü on 4 January 2011; accessed on 23 May 2011 Yılmaz Demir was on trial for membership of "Freedom Road" (tr: Özgürlük Yolu) later known as Socialist Party of Kurdistan. PSK (kr: Partiya Sosyaliste Kurdistana) not to be confused with the Revolutionary Party of Kurdistan, (kr: Partiya Şoreşa Kürdistan (PŞK) or even the PKK.Some details in Turkish can be found on a page about Kurds from Cihanbeyli, no date, accessed on 23 May 2011 İsmail Kıran (surname sometimes spelled Karak) and Orhan Keskin were alleged members of Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Path).Page entitled Devrimci Yol Şehitleri, "Martyrs of Revolutionary Path", dated 29 May 2008; accessed on 23 May 2011
The prisoners that died in Diyarbakır Prison between 1981 and 1984 are:The table was prepared using "File of Torture", Publication of the Human Rights Association, Ankara, March 1996, , the table prepared by Helmut Oberdiek, a page at diyarbakirzindani.com entitled D. Bakır Zindanında ölümler , see also information provided by Mehdi Zana