Turkish laws have a great tolerance for ordinary crimes. The penalties for crimes such as burglary, rape, defraudation, actual bodily harm and coinage offence are far away from deterrence. Conditional release is applied for the crimes requiring a penalty of imprisonment up to 3 years and the criminals are released at the stage of judging. It is almost impossible to encounter persons that are in prisons due to these crimes. Terror criminals are released by a law which is called effective repentance law and they are not arrested.
Almost all of the prisons in Turkey which have a large number and capacity are full of people imprisoned because of their debts. No quarter is granted to debtors and they are improsoned where they are caught. Two types of dormitory system are applied in prisons. Some prisoners stay at the boss dormitory located at the upper floors of the prison and prisoners who do not have money stay at the dormitories located at the ground and basement floors at very bad conditions.
Prisoners at the boss dormitory are probably people who have large amounts of debt and who have the chance of living humanly in the prison. Most of the prisoners are people who are desperate, have no money and have small amounts of debts. The latter are subject to inhuman treatment and live at very bad conditions. Whether having large or small amounts of debts, having the chance of living humanly in the prison or not, people are deprived of their freedom because of their debts and if their money is not enough to pay their debts, they are subjected to inhuman torture.
But I would like to make a very important point!
Turkey is not the only country which has imprisoned debtors. When we make a search in the dusty racks of history, we encounter the Fleet prison in London. It was a debtor prison in England, which caused big social discussions and was all the time brought to an end with mutinies.
Article comments
1 - S
HI,
I have found out that my friend has been arrested for debts. He bankrupted about 3 years ago. How can I find out which prison is he in and how can i contact him?
2 - Madeleine Kingston
Msuvain, congratulations on an excellent article which I read a while ago and cited on Twitter in discussion with advocates and victims of Turkish policies.
It is good to see that this issue is being addressed through active campaigning. As shown in my previous comment I was happy to sign the Petition started by the Transparency Association.
It is time that banks exercised a higher sense of #CorporateSocialResponsibility #CSR and ceased to pursue debt claims in such a way as to ensure imprisonment for debt.
I was under the impression that occurs nowhere else in the world.
Harsh penalties that ignore Constitutional rights of citizens and universal human rights provisions should be globally condemned.
As you have pointed out, "despite the 38th article of the Turkish Constitution and the protocol provision in Annex 4 of European Convention on Human Rights, debtors are still imprisoned in #turkey and harshly treated.
I hope that many others will sign the Petition.
Madeleine Kingston Victoria Australia 16 March 2013