Inside out Borders – 11 July 2014
ΣΥΝΤΆΚΤΗΣ INSIDEOUT BORDERS · ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΎΤΗΚΕ 11 ΙΟΥΛΊΟΥ 2014 · ΕΝΗΜΕΡΏΘΗΚΕ 11 ΙΟΥΛΊΟΥ 2014
Responding to a parliamentarian inquiry of Pervin Buldan from HDP, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said 1,914 children are in prison in Turkey.
Besides, 353 children stay with their prisoner or convict mothers.
Children average period of detention in the country is 110 days.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ revealed during a parliamentarian inquiry of Pervin Buldan from People’s Democratic Party (HDP) shocking facts about the children in prisons and the pressure they are experiencing.
As Bozdağ stated a total of 1,914 children including 472 convicts and 1,442 prisoners were in jail. He also stated that 353 children stayed with their convict or prisoner mothers.
Last year speaking to bianet, Zafer Kıraç and Mustafa Eren from Civil Society Association in the Criminal Execution System (CISST) said that approximately 2000 children were in prisons and 1608 of them were prisoners, while the one quarter of all were convicts.
71 complaints
Bozdağ continued saying that Justice Ministry has received a total of 71 complaint letters on grounds of the allegations about maltreatment of child convicts or prisoners in penal institutions since 2002.
He stated these complaints included the allegations of battery, threat, insult, arbitrary treatment, the violation of telephone and petition rights, the prevention of social activities and indifference to health issues.
Unanswered questions
Stating there is no sufficiently detailed statistical data about other matters signified in the question, Bozdağ did not answered Buldan’s question whether there were any children in prison that lost their lives since 2002.
Another unanswered question was “how many of the children in prison were arrested for political crimes”.
