Turkey’s ruling Justice and Improvement Get together (AKP) authorities is planning to construct 20 new prisons this yr, which is predicted to considerably enhance the nation’s already excessive incarceration fee, Turkish Minute reported, citing information from the Justice Ministry.
There are at the moment 399 penal establishments in Turkey with the capability to carry 289,974 folks. The AKP authorities, which constructed 22 prisons final yr, intends to extend the variety of penal establishments within the nation to 419 in 2023. The federal government additionally goals to construct 4 new prisons in 2024 and 4 extra in 2025.
When the AKP got here to energy in 2002, there have been solely 59,429 inmates in jail, together with 34,808 convicts. The federal government has constructed 269 new prisons since 2006, rising the capability to carry 216,607 extra folks, in response to Turkish media studies.
Mass detentions and arrests have been going down in Turkey since a coup try in July 2016. The AKP authorities accuses the faith-based Gülen motion of masterminding the failed coup, though the motion strongly denies any involvement within the abortive putsch.
Critics accuse President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who launched into a large crackdown on the opposition after the coup try, of utilizing the incident as a pretext to quash dissent.
Human Rights Watch says in a 2023 report that tens of 1000’s of individuals alleged to have hyperlinks to the Gülen motion, the biggest group focused by Erdoğan, proceed to face unfair trials on terrorism expenses on the idea of their perceived affiliation with the group, with many having confronted extended and arbitrary imprisonment and no redress after mass removing from civil service jobs and the judiciary.
A complete of 332,884 folks have been detained and 101,000 arrested in operations towards supporters of the Gülen motion because the coup try, Turkey’s Inside Minister Süleyman Soylu mentioned in July, including that there are 19,252 folks behind bars who’re beneath arrest or convicted of hyperlinks to the motion.
Greater than 130,000 public servants have been summarily faraway from their jobs after the tried coup for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree legal guidelines topic to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.
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