STRUGGLES

İsmail Durmis:
“I was accused ofbeing a member ofa terror organisation - the PKK. I spent nine days in a police station
in Wan and they tortured me. They hung me from my feet. There was no water, no bread. They beat me
three times a day, every day. After that, I was taken to court and then sent to Muş prison. I spent four
years in prison there, from 1999 to 2003.”
voices from the struggles for freedom in bakur
Mehmet Emin Şeker:
“In 2007 there was an election where several candidates were banned. There were huge protests and
someone was killed. During this time, I was arrested and charged with acting on behalfofthe PKK. I
spent three days in custody and then I was sentenced to six years in prison, but I served one and a half
years. They sent me to Trabzon prison in the Black Sea region. It's a fascist area, so this prison was really
bad. They punished us for dancing the Halay [a traditional Kurdish dance]. Afterwards, I was sent with
other prisoners to Giresun. We were forced to take offall ofour clothes. I resisted and they put me alone in
a cell, 2 metres x 1 metre. There was a very small window with bars on. They used isolation as a form of
punishment.
One oftheir methods oftorture is using padded rooms so that there is no sign ofthem beating you. It is
also very hot in the rooms. These methods are used now in F-type prisons. Right now, there are over 4,500
people in prison who haven't been sentenced. In the last two months, two prisoners have died. The
Turkish media hasn't reported about this.”
Bedrettın Gezîci:
“When people are charged, the court looks at their family and their background and decides on that basis
whether they are guilty and whether they are connected to the PKK. I was charged with being a member
ofa terrorist organisation. I spent six years in prison, from 1998-2004. In the 90s, my family's village
was evacuated and we were forced to leave. They burnt our village down twice. Torture was ordinary for
us in the village.
When I was in custody they tortured me again. The centre for torture was in Aksaray in Istanbul. The
main method they used was the tying ofhands behind the back onto a wooden stake. They used special
techniques, which the CIA taught to the Turkish police before 1980. They cut offmy circulation and after
a few minutes I became unconscious. They tortured me in my genital area with wooden sticks. They gave
me electric shocks and sprayed me with pressurised water. They used hundreds ofmethods on prisoners.
Ifa prisoner is Kurdish they especially harass them, laughing at them. They put a tail on me, said “show
me your tail”and said that I was an animal because I was Kurdish.
In prison you can’t see anything, not even the sky. Even in the outdoor area where you get fresh air, you
can only see walls. Ifyou’re not strong, you could go mad. With the screams ofothers you could go mad.
We were all tortured in one place. They did this deliberately. This was part ofthe torture. They would
say: “You have heard the screams, we will do the same to you. Speak and be free.”Sometimes they tried to
bribe me, or asked me to join them, or said that they could bring me women. Usually there were five or six
police, a couple were good and some were bad.
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