Serious implications of nude searches in Erdogan’s prisons

Robier al-Fares

The repercussions of the scandal revealed in the prisons of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continue to confirm the falsehood of the religious allegations of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as official accusations were leveled against opposition MP Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu after he highlighted the exposure of veiled women to nude searches in security centers and prisons following their arrest on charges of belonging to the Hizmet movement.

The director of Usak security, Masoud Jazar, and a number of other security personnel filed a communication in Usak city court against Gergerlioglu, using the harsher words against him such as “traitor”, “bloodsucker” and “who does not flow from his mouth but blood.”

After this step, Gergerlioglu posted a tweet in which he stated that the government accused him of lying and also spread slander against him, after he proposed investigating the nude inspection. He added, “They were not satisfied with this, but also filed a complaint against me. But I thank God that I am not supported by the government but by the people. I am an honest person, my hearing is clean, and I have never lied in my life. Together, let us end this violation and not back down from this mistake.”

Gergerlioglu criticized the authorities’ failure to take measures against those responsible for the violations in the detention centers, noting that about 30 Turkish women were subjected to a humiliating assault by forcing them to undergo nude inspections at the Usak police headquarters with no necessary action and without investigation.

Well-known Turkish writer and journalist Orhan Kemal Cengiz commented on the targeting of Gergerlioglu, a parliamentarian for the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

In an article on his personal blog, Cengiz discussed the reasons for the government’s efforts to silence Gergerlioglu, describing him as “the voice of the damned and demonized by the regime.”

Cengiz stressed that Gergerlioglu is one of the rare parliamentary figures who loudly convey the grievances faced by different groups in the country under various pretexts to the parliament at a time when even its victims are afraid.

Cengiz explained that Gergerlioglu spent his life since the 1997 coup and to this day defending human rights, saying, “The ruling authority that sanctifies veiled women wants to silence Gergerlioglu because he has placed it before the spotless truth that is the search of veiled women naked in the security directorates and prisons.”

The denial of AKP leaders that there was a shameful inspection of women in prisons caused anger at the victims themselves, until they decided to break their silence and talk about the tragedy.

One of the victims, lawyer Batul Alpay, revealed the exact date and place she was subjected to nude searches, explaining that she was arrested with her father, and then she was imprisoned and stripped of clothes in prison, and they ordered her to sit and stand three times, noting that “if the security cameras in the prison were examined during the day of November 2, 2017, you will see that I was exposed to x-rays among four male guards.”

Teacher Tuba Ozdemir, another victim of the nude inspection, said, “I had a nervous breakdown when they asked me to remove all my clothes. It was the worst day of my life.”

Natalie Avazian, Zakia Atach, Hajer Koch, and journalist Nour Anar Kılıncı also shared a video clip on social media in which they talked about their exposure to this scandalous practice as well.

Prominent Turkish journalist Meyser Yildiz said that she is an eyewitness to the practice of nude inspections of women inside prisons in Turkey, which AKP leaders insist on denying.

Yildiz, who was released from prison last month, confirmed that she remained silent until a week ago, when Gergerlioglu began talking about the nude inspection of about 30 women in Usak prison.

She added that she had first waited for officials to act, noting that the officials should look at what was said and not look at the people themselves, so an immediate investigation should have been carried out to reveal what happened.

The second reason she waited is that she wanted the Turkish Ministry of Justice to make a statement, but so far it has not issued any statement.

Yildiz, who was on trial on charges of revealing state secrets, referred in two articles about the Turkish military role in Libya to these shameful crimes.