Amnesty International has gathered “credible evidence” that people arrested in relation to the past week’s failed coup attempt have been often arbitrary detained, deprived of contacts with family and lawyers as well as go through “severe” tortures.
The detainees arrested over alleged links to the foiled coup attempt are being arbitrarily held, sometimes in informal detention places such as sports centers and stables. They are also not properly informed about the charges against them, Amnesty International said in a statement, published on its official website.
Some detainees, including at least three judges, were held in the corridors of courthouses.
Amnesty also obtained “extremely alarming accounts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees” from their lawyers, doctors and a person on duty in a detention facility.
According to these reports, police held detainees in stress positions for up to 48 hours, denied them food, water and medical treatment, verbally abused and threatened them and subjected them to beatings and torture, including rape and sexual assault.
Based on the information given by a person on duty at Ankara Police Headquarters’ sports hall to Amnesty, a detainee suffered severe wounds after apparently being beaten by police. He could not stand up or focus his eyes and he eventually lost consciousness. Police refused to allow this detainee to receive basic medical treatment and a police doctor reportedly said: “Let him die. We will say he came to us dead.” More here
The Turkish president is tightening his grip in a move that many scholars have drawn parallels to the workings of the Ottoman Empire.
It is also ironic that Turkey is a NATO member state and in good standing with the US.
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