As the Movement for Unconditional Justice, we stood our 5th watch in front of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Friday, December 25th. The watch, in which 4 people attended due to the pandemic, lasted 2 hours.
- The subject of this week was the strip search which is also in Turkey’s agenda at the moment and any related human rights violations.
- In an age where technology has developed so much, we have stated that treatment of “strip search” is both an improper and always possible to abuse, for that reason, in order to stop this unlawful treatment, the Assembly must make a code amendment or the administration must make a new regulation.
- The arbitrariness of strip search is an extremely embarrassing practice that harms human dignity. It is absolutely unacceptable to treat detained or arrested persons as if they were a piece of soulless meat. This procedure, which has been going on for years, is applied especially on political criminals. Also it is used as a means of punishment and intimidation. On the contrary of the Code, it is left to the arbitrariness of prison guard who have no psychological or medical education. We stated that the strip search is clearly harassing and aim to hurt the dignity of the addressee and therefore it is hard for the victims to express this.
- Despite the unfounded denials of a group of members of the government, including ‘jurists’, the victims’ courageously expressing this inhumane treatment they were subjected to on social media has unquestionably revealed the reality of the situation.
As the activists of the Movement for Unconditional Justice, we cry out that this treatment of arbitrary strip search using as a method of punishment and intimidation, especially on dissidents, is an unacceptable method, and call on responsible state agents and prison administrations to immediately put an end to this unlawful treatment and return to the principles of the universal law.