The widespread and systematic use of torture in Turkey goes back to the Ottoman Empire. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, torture of civilians by the Turkish Armed Forces was widespread during the Dersim rebellion. The Sansaryan Han police headquarters and Harbiye Military Prison in Istanbul became known for torture in the 1940s. Amnesty International (AI) first documented Turkish torture after the 1971 Turkish coup d'état and has continued to issue critical reports, particularly after the outbreak of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1980s. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture has issued critical reports on the extent of torture in Turkey since the 1990s. The Stockholm Center for Freedom published a report entitled Mass Torture and Ill-Treatment in Turkey in June 2017. The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey estimates there are around one million victims of torture in Turkey.
History
The history of torture goes back to the Ottoman Empire. The Committee of Union and Progress used the place known as the Bekirağa Bölüğü (Military Company of Bekir Agha) situated in the building that now houses the Istanbul University as a special torture place. Almost all dissident people came here once. Deputy Rıza Nur was tortured here in 1910. He raised torture allegations in parliament. The demand to establish a commission to investigate the torture allegations was turned down by 96 against 73 votes.
After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 Sansaryan Han and the Harbiye Military Prison became the symbols for torture. Having been built in Sirkeci in 1895 Sansaryan Han became the police headquarters of Istanbul in 1944. People that were tortured here include poet and writer Attilâ İlhan, Nihat Sargın, former chair of the Workers Party of Turkey and poet Nâzım Hikmet. During the Racism-Turanism trials, 23 nationalists, including Nihal Atsız, Zeki Velidi Togan, Nejdet Sançar and others, were tortured between 1944-45. In 1945 the military prison in Istanbul moved from Tophane to Harbiye. In one section 40 cells were built measuring 1,5 by 2 metres. Alleged members of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) were held here as well as the 40 of 49 Kurds that had been detained in 1959 (:de:Prozess der 49). They were held here for 195 days. Twenty-four prisoners allegedly died because of the bad conditions they had been held in. In Harbiye Military Prison members of the extreme right Grey Wolves (ülkücü) were tortured after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état. Besides bastinado (falaka) and rough beatings, prisoners would be held in narrow dark cells often called "coffin" (tabutluk) or isolation (tecrit).
Torture after March 12
After the 1971 Turkish coup d'état torture was applied in police centres and centres of the Counter-Guerrilla that were jointly used by the secret service called National Intelligence Organization and the Special Warfare Department (Turkish: Özel Harp Dairesi, ÖHD). The torture methods included electric shocks applied by field telephones various forms of hanging, falaka, rape, sleep and food deprivation and torturing relatives in the presence of the suspect.
The military applied torture to political prisoners as a matter of policy. Affidavits confirmed that martial law commanders, military prosecutors and judicial advisors gave order to torture political prisoners, sometime supervising it.
The Ziverbey Estate
The Ziverbey Estate (Ziverbey Köşkü) is a place in İstanbul-Erenköy which was used as a torture centre especially during the 12 March period. At the Ziverbey Estate well known people such as the journalists İlhan Selçuk, Doğan Avcıoğlu, Uğur Mumcu and İlhami Soysal were tortured.
See also
Report of Talat Turhan to the CHP / First published on 1 May 1976
Serdar Çelik: Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force
Torture after the 1980 coup
Over a quarter of a million people were arrested in Turkey on political grounds since 1980 and almost all of them were tortured. The Human Rights Association (HRA), founded in 1986 put the figure at 650,000 and in 2008 the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) spoke of one million victims of torture in Turkey.