As thousands of people imprisoned under Turkey’s sweeping anti-terror laws have been languishing in jail for years awaiting trial, a new decree (No:694) issued on 25th August 2017 extended the pre-trial detention period from five to seven years.

With the release of new decree (No:694) which were published in the Official Gazette, the Turkish government has literally turned pretrial detention into a punishment without trial for hundreds of people including lawyers, judges, doctors, journalists, political activists and students.

According to the decree, the period of pretrial detention for those arrested on accusations of aiding and supporting a terrorist organisation, espionage and involvement in a coup attempt can now be extended up to seven years.

The period was previously limited to a five-year maximum.

EARLY PAROLE FOR THE CONVICTS

In the same decree, Turkish government pardoned all disciplinary punishment applied to convicts and made possible early release of 10.000 convicts.

Previously, with the Decree No.671 dated 17th August 2016, Turkish government has decreased the minimum term to be able to benefit from parole / conditional release and so made possible immediate release of 38.000 convicts. According to the Turkish Law on Execution of Punishments, it was mandatory to serve 2/3 of the punishment for the convicts to benefit from conditional release. With the Decree 671, this rate was decreased to 1/2 from 2/3. Since 17th August 2016, at least 60.000 convicts were released under Decree no:671.

There are also 668 infants (0-6 years old) in Turkish prisons. As a reply to Turkey’s main opposition Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) deputy Gamze İlgezdi’s question motion, Turkish Justice Ministry has stated that the number of children staying along with their mothers behind bars has hit 668 as of July 4, 2017. The corresponding number was 560 in April.

There are 381 punishment execution facility in Turkey and Erdogan Regime plans to construct 174 new prisons. With the decree 674, legal and financial necessities (such as tender procedure & to be pre-planned in budget programme) to construct prisons were revoked and construction of new prisons expedited.