HARSH – I couldn’t cry when my siblings and my mother cried in sadness. I had to be that strong family member. Dad was in jail, bank accounts were frozen, our car was impounded and we were ordered out of our home.
Lawyer Nalan Dilara Uğur recalls in his Ankaran office how his life turned upside down in one fell swoop in July 2016.
The phenomenon is called “civil death” in Turkey, when civil rights disappear in the blink of an eye.
A massive wave of arrests and purges had begun in Turkey after the coup attempt on Friday, July 15, 2016.
– Early on Saturday morning, the list of those arrested became public. My Hüsamettin father was also on the list, says Nalan Dilara Uğur.
Hüsamett’s Uğur was the supreme judge of Turkey. Now he is one of more than 300,000 prisoners in Turkey.
The police took the father from the family’s home in Ankara on July 18, 2016.
Hüsamett’s Uğur had run into difficulties at his workplace and had, among other things, participated in a press conference in which there was opposition to the reorganization of the Supreme Court. Opponents suspected that the goal of the change was to get government supporters as judges.
Nalan Dilara Uğur saw her father for the last time on the loose a couple of days before the coup attempt, after a press conference.
– I was leaving for Istanbul and my father took me to the bus station. I said in my embarrassment that he would still end up in prison – but I couldn’t imagine that it would actually happen like this.
Listen to the World Politics daily program about the state of democracy in Turkey. (Program from November 2022)
The family sold their property to survive
Nalan Dilara Uğur had lived a safe life and ended up studying law in Istanbul. He spent almost his entire childhood in two residential areas intended for employees of the Ministry of Justice.
– People’s attitude towards us changed completely when my father was arrested. My childhood friends avoided me, and when we met they went to the other side of the street.
The first months were difficult. The family moved into a shared rental apartment to save money.
– We tried to collect money when the bank accounts were frozen. We sold, among other things, gold and jewelry bought as savings, says Nalan Dilara Uğur.
Hüsametti Uğur was eventually sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for membership in FETÖ, which according to official Turkey is an imam in exile by Fethullah Gülen founded by a terrorist organization.
Gülen first worked together with the current president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with. However, the men quarreled and a fierce power struggle began.
The 2016 coup attempt has been blamed on Gülen’s followers.
Nalan Dilara Uğur, who graduated as a lawyer last year, denies that her father had anything to do with “FETÖ” and the coup attempt.
In the opinion of Nalan Dilara Uğur, her father’s fate was sealed by the big tax case that came to the Supreme Court. The judges were told what kind of verdict was expected. Hüsamett’s Uğur opposed the decision imposed from above.
The case was related to Erdoğan’s administration’s attempt to discipline a large media house by imposing massive back taxes on it.
Prisoners may be treated as enemies
26-year-old Nalan Dilara Uğur is in a special situation. He is a young lawyer and has his own father as a client – a former Supreme Court judge.
– He is indeed a very demanding customer.
The big job is to forward complaints about what happens to the father and other prisoners in prison.
Critics of Turkish prison conditions say that some of the prisoners are considered enemies and are treated accordingly.
Nala Dilara Uğur’s father has received hostile treatment, for example, in February 2020, when he was in the notorious Kırıkkale prison.
– One day he was called to the warden’s room. In prisons, the space is known as a torture room because there is no camera.
Over and over again, the warden demanded that Hüsamett’s Uğur tell out loud what he had been convicted of. This is one way to humiliate prisoners.
– My father said that everything can be found in the documents, why should he repeat it. Finally, the guard grabbed my father by the face. Then followed the beating that lasted for half an hour, says Nalan Dilara Uğur.
The ill-treatment continued even after Hüsamett’s Uğur was transferred to another prison in the city of Afyon.
Nalan Dilara Uğur believes her father is being mistreated because he complains about human rights violations in prisons. One incident that drew attention involved a prisoner suffering from tuberculosis who was beaten several times.
The prisoner died in prison in August 2022. The official investigation found no wrongdoing in the prisoner’s treatment.
Seriously ill prisoners are left without treatment
– Sick prisoners are a big problem. Prisoners are either deprived of proper treatment or receive it far too late, says a member of the Turkish Parliament Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğluwhich has highlighted the problems of Turkish prisons.
The letters weigh a few grams. When you read what has been done to the prisoners, it feels like the papers weigh tons.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Member of the Turkish Parliament
The name of Gergerlioğlu, who represents the pro-Kurdish HDP party, is familiar to prisoners, and there are piles of letters from prisons on his desk in the parliament.
– The letters weigh a few grams. When you read what has been done to the prisoners, it feels like the papers weigh tons, Gergerlioğlu sighs.
He is a doctor and reads stories about how, for example, prisoners with cancer are abandoned. In Gergerlioğlu’s opinion, conditions in Turkish prisons are now worse than in Russia.
– Last year at least 35 prisoners committed suicide and 40 prisoners died of diseases.
“Prisoners’ letters of complaint are confiscated”
The prisoners’ letters tell about violence and arbitrary treatment. Prisoners’ outdoor activities or meeting times with their relatives may be restricted
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu also notices that letters are confiscated because the prisoners may refer to their previous letters that have not arrived.
Gergerlioğlu repeatedly asks the Ministry of Justice about human rights violations, but the standard answer is that there are no problems. According to the Ministry’s interpretation (you move to another service) ill-treatment is not accepted and “unfounded accusations” are only intended to undermine trust in the prison institution.
Turkish prisons are overcrowded and tens of thousands of prisoners are overcrowded. Almost 40 new prisons are under construction.
The number of prisoners is increasing, among other things, because there are people in prisons who in many countries would not end up there in the first place. For example, defamation of the president was punished only in 2021 (you switch to another service) more than a thousand prison sentences.
The Twitter message may result in a nighttime raid
According to Gergerlioğ, the state of freedom of speech in Turkey is the worst in a century.
– From a Twitter message criticizing the administration, it can follow that the police will kick the door open early in the morning and take it with them, says Gergerlioğlu.
Gergerlioğlu also knows that prisoners may be treated like the enemy, and it can even be seen as mistreatment of sick prisoners.
According to him, two groups in particular are treated as enemies, i.e. those convicted of supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, and those convicted of Gülen connections.
The case of Hüsamett’s Uğur is also familiar to Gegerlioğlu.
– This is a former Supreme Court judge who knows the law and is being beaten in prison. Think how ordinary, poor and unknown prisoners are treated, says Gergerlioğlu.