INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY CALL FOR HASHTAG ACTION

CLOSE THE TYPE S,R,Y HIGH SECURITY PRISONS NOW!

The general public and especially international prison solidarity movements will surely remember the big hunger strike and death fast resistance of prisoners in Turkey against so-called F-Type prisons, starting from 2000.

It was one of the biggest attacks of a state on the revolutionary opposition, resulting in the death of 28 prisoners during a massacre in 20 prisons and 122 martyrs in total over a period of seven years of struggle to end the isolation system imposed on the political prisoners.

The long-term resistance which spread over the prison walls and across the Turkish borders, has achieved a significant victory against these politics. The resistance and above all the new prison project which aimed at breaking the resistance and separating the prisoners from each other and the world outside, was heard from town to town and from country to country.

So, the ruling class in Turkey which has always relied on and implemented imperialist politics to suppress the struggle of the masses of people, and first of all revolutionary resistance, has prepared a new attack. This time even more silent and treacherous. The S-R-Y Type Prisons started to be constructed in Turkey in late 2020. As far as known, 22 Y Type prisons, officially called „High Security Prisons“, 7 S Type Prisons were built in 2021. In total there are 51 of these new types of prisons in Turkey. The prisoners call them well-type-prisons.

The physical structure of S Type prisons does not differ a lot from F Type prisons, but there’s a different dimension of isolation and intensified psychological torture.

What is different is that there are cameras inside the cell, so the living area of the prisoners is monitored and recorded 24 hours a day. Every conversation, what they eat, any activity is under control.

Without any legal basis and justification, a „dangerous prisoner status“ is imposed on the prisoners. So they are denied many rights on these grounds and their political status is denied.

Actually it’s said that this prison is built for prisoners with aggravated life sentences, because it contains more single cells.

Y Type Prisons are known as storey prisons. A very high wall and 3 storeys with corridors. A certain number of windows in every storey. There are four cells in each of them (single or triple cells). But the prison yard is not in front of the cells, so they can’t enter when they want. They have to go to a separate place for the prison yard. But due to several excuses like “lack of staff“ etc. they don’t take them to the yard at the usual times to which they are entitled.

There is sheet metal on the windows, preventing sunlight from coming in. So there is very little sunlight and air inside the cells.

The reason why these prisons are called well-type-prisons is that there are very high walls where the prisoners are taken to get some air, only a tiny portion of sky can be seen. And left between these walls, there are absolutely no conditions to make your voice heard if you need anything. In other words, you’re left at the bottom of a well and can only communicate with a human being when they pass by or when it suits them.

To oppose these inhuman conditions to which prisoners are subjected, to be transferred to another prison that is no high security prison and where the prisoners can be among their friends and close to their families, the political prisoner Nurettin Kaya has started a hunger strike and later turned it into a death fast.

He intensified his protest, even after he was transferred from Erzurum Dumlu Y Type Prison to Bolu Prison, because his demand also includes that he is transferred together with his friends Alisan Gül and Cemil Kurt who weren’t transferred with him and who also continue unlimited hunger strikes since 11 March 2024.

At the moment a few more prisoners continue with unlimited hungerstrikes to demand the closure of these inhuman prisons and their time is running out.