Diyarbakır No. 5 Prison Memory Museum Initiative Group made a statement in front of the jail, notorious for the horrendous torture after the 12 September 1980 coup. Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu and people who were in prison at the time attended the action.

The statement was read in Kurdish by Refik Karakoç, and in Turkish by Haluk Yıldızhan, from the initiative group. Yıldızhan, who said that it was the 41st anniversary of the prisoners' collective resistance against oppression, torture, assimilation, forced confession and similar practices in the prison that had turned into a "torture house", drew attention to the fact that the resistance had been successful. Yıldızhan said that 5 September 1983 was the day when the spark of resistance was ignited and the slogan "Human dignity will defeat torture" was heard all around the prison. He added that the 1980 coup was still showing its effect and that the situation in the prisons was the same.

'Resistance against torture'

Diyarbakır No. 5 Prison was "a special, planned extermination center of the coup generals where hostility towards Kurds, racist, chauvinist and inhumane understanding was implemented in all its nakedness," said Yıldızhan, adding: "The combative dynamics of the Kurdish people, politicians, intellectuals, writers, artists, and people from all segments of society, have had their share of the brutal tortures.”

Yıldızhan underlined that 34 people lost their lives and hundreds were injured in torture between 1981-84 and added that this process continued as a process of "torture and resistance against torture."

Requests listed

Emphasizing that the No. 5 prison building should be designed in accordance with its original as a whole and that the opinions and suggestions of those who were in prison and those who lived through those days should definitely be taken into consideration and turned into a memory museum, Yıldızhan listed the initiative’s demands as follows:

"-The prison building, which has undergone many renovations to date, should be physically restored to its condition in 1980-84.

-Another museum should not be considered inside the prison building. No. 5 prison building should not be touched for any other purpose. It should be organized as a memory museum only to confront the tortures carried out during the military coup period and to pass on what was done to future generations.

-The Ministry of Culture and Tourism should work together with those of us who lived through that period in the interior design of the prison and the collection of materials for the museum."

Yıldızhan called on the public, advocates of rights, law, peace and human rights to be sensitive about No. 5 prison becoming a memory center.