Mardin- Northern Kurdistan: Fifteen children in Mardin prison are dealing with health problems according to a Human Rights Association (IHD) Mardin Branch’s report. Each child prisoner has been sentenced to 10 or 15 yeas.
Imprisoned children have become ill because of unhealthy conditions in the prisons. 15 children; including V.B (17), O.Ç (16), I.K (16), S.B (16) and A.G (16), who were already sentenced to approximately five years for each, have been waiting for medical treatment. Those are also waiting for other trials to end. Prosecutors are demanding between 10 and 15 year imprisonment, said in the report.
“Thousands of children in Turkey are being arrested since 2006. Some of them are only 12 years old. They are being accused of being member of an illegal organization because of Anti-Terror Act (TMK). The problem for these children is not only that of been granted a fair trial. They have also to cope with unhealthy conditions in the prisons. 15 children who are victims of TMK have been sick and they are not allowed to have access to medical treatment. Those children need to be released as soon as possible; – the IHD concluded – otherwise the problem based on TMK would be the reason for irrevocable harm for children and their family.”
Following the initial comment of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that ‘’whether men, women or children, the security forces will react with disproportionate force’’, several amendments were made to the country’s anti-terror law, it is possible to charges children as terrorists and put them away for up to 50 years in jail. There are currently 2,622 minors serving time in Turkish prisons on the charge of terrorism.
In 23 of April 2009, an anti-terror police attacked and beat one of our children to death, the policeman was not punished:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEMuwkETXuU
In 2008, a policeman broke the arm of a Kurdish child in front of the cameras during the Kurdish festival Newroz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT9Gk3tkGsk