Turkey is about to release thousands of prisoners to combat Covid-19 – but not those unfairly deemed state enemies

With the pandemic taking its toll on the country at a steady but aggressive pace, anxiety about the fate of over 100 journalists, politicians and activists is growing, writes Sebnem Arsu

Sincan prison, outside Ankara, Turkey (AFP/Getty)

Thousands of families with loved ones in jail held their breath in front of their televisions on Tuesday, waiting to hear details of the Turkish government’s draft of a highly anticipated parole law to be enacted before Covid-19 infiltrates overcrowded prisons.

Rumours circulating for weeks suggested that sex offenders, drug-gang members, murderers and perpetrators of domestic violence would be released – but not those convicted of terror offences, including dozens of journalists and politicians.

Tuesday’s statement aimed to clear the air over who would benefit from the imminent parole.

“Crimes that would hurt the public conscience; sex offences, drug-related crimes; voluntary manslaughter, as well as violence against women, and terror crimes, are left out of the context,” Cahit Ozkan, co-chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s parliamentary group, said in front of cameras in Ankara.

Ozkan added that their draft also foresaw early release for inmates older than 65 years old and mothers with children younger than six years old as long as their charges did not fall into the listed categories, with a special emphasis on “terrorism”.

When the changes were introduced, the specific response to the Covid-19 pandemic was limited to up to six months of home stays for open-prison inmates who had almost served their terms.

Ozge Tirenc Terkoglu, the wife of Baris Terkoglu, a journalist who had been arrested in early March on charges of violating Turkish Intelligence Agency law by reporting on an agent killed in Libya, remained cautious as she watched the statement live.

“Today was difficult for me as I now try extra hard not to fall into a spiral of emotion with an expectation of a release because you just can never be sure,” Tirenc said in a phone interview.

“The investigation into Baris seems to fall into the category of crimes that qualify for release but I fear evil intentions might still keep him in jail.”

Tirenc Terkoglu speaks from experience, as she is not new to the agony of awaiting her husband's fate – he already faced terror charges in 2010 and spent nearly two years in jail.

Back then, it was about their critical work against a group Ankara now deems a terror organisation.

After Terkoglu, two more journalists of OdaTV, a fiercely critical news portal, along with four others from various publications that ran the same story were also arrested. Since then, OdaTV has been blocked.

With the Covid-19 pandemic taking its toll on Turkey at a steady but aggressive pace, anxiety about the situation in correctional facilities is running high.

In 386 prisons, the visits of relatives have been suspended for the past two weeks and lawyers’ meetings with clients reduced, while telephone calls have been extended from 10 to 20 minutes.

Before these steps were introduced, about 150,000 prison personnel were advised to monitor inmates for Covid-19 symptoms and disinfect premises as well as vehicles on a daily basis, a ministry statement said.

Critics, on the other hand, remain sceptical of the efficiency of the quoted measures when scientists regularly disclose new facts about the virus and the death toll across the country continues to rise.

Turkey started with one Covid-19 patient on 11 March and is now up to 13,531, with 214 dead, the health ministry announced late on Wednesday, without giving any geographical breakdown of cases. The virus, the ministry confirmed, has spread throughout the country of 83 million.

Despite the restrictions placed on travel, public outings and education, experts warn that it is a matter of time before there is an outbreak of the disease in Turkish jails, which are currently overstretched to 127 per cent of their capacity.

Changes introduced on Tuesday are likely to see the release of 90,000 inmates, easing a total prison population of 300,000 but leaving incarcerated politicians and journalists – labelled as terrorists despite being involved in any act of violence – to face the virus in jail.

“Anti-terror law is so flexible that one can derive terror charges out of the most innocent conversation, label the person a terrorist without any additional evidence, file charges and land the person in jail,” said Ugur Poyraz, a lawyer practising criminal law in Turkey for more than 30 years.

“We urgently need a new description of ‘terror’ based on international norms of law and reconsider filed cases as well as convictions of such nature at once.”

For years, Turkey’s anti-terror laws have driven a wedge between Ankara and the international community

Most recently, membership talks with the European Union soured after the Turkish government refused to revisit the legal definition of terror.

While some of Ankara’s concerns were widely embraced, Brussels remained wary of an aggressive clampdown against dissent based upon the premise of terror, with the European Commission’s 2019 Turkey report stating that “anti-terror measures need to be proportionate”.

The liberal use of the word “terror” as applied to the activities of people promoting peace rather than violence, on the other hand, only takes away from the credibility of the government when there is a genuine terrorist threat.

However, among Turkey’s ruling class, led by religious conservatives and nationalists, constructive criticism from the west is often interpreted as foreign intervention in domestic politics. The talk immediately shifts to country-specific human-rights violations in Europe – but, despite these undeniable facts, two wrongs do not make a right.

There’s still time left to make things right, not only for the country’s judiciary but also for its expressed humanity.

I talked to members of opposition parties who worked until the early hours on Wednesday, pinning down their arguments to challenge the government line.

Their foremost concerns were about the draft law’s discriminatory approach in response to “a virus which kills without discrimination” – an idea found in a slogan widely circulated on Twitter after details of the parole became public.

It also fails to address the 45,000 detainees who have been arrested but not tried, such as OdaTV journalists and others who reported on Turkey’s covert operations in Libya. They are in a cruel limbo, still awaiting an indictment and then a trial.

For more than 100 journalists, dozens of politicians – including Selahattin Demirtas, a former co-chair of the pro-Kurdish party – writers such as Ahmet Altan and others such as Osman Kavala of the Open Society, this also means a further wait in jail, and further anxiety for their families in the coming days.

Turkey can do better than Iran, which released 85,000 inmates, including their political prisoners.

The Turkish government, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, states that its commitment to securing the prison population against the Covid-19 pandemic is in line with World Health Organisation guidelines.

However, in the lead-up to possible talks on Thursday, opponents of the draft law have questioned whether lawmakers will use this opportunity to align Turkey with the criteria of international law or whether they will consider any losses among political prisoners as merely accidental deaths.

A previous version of this article suggested that three other journalists were arrested alongside two from OdaTV. In fact, four were arrested. We have updated the article to reflect this.