Emergency Rule isolation continues for two journalists in Silivri Prison
No change in the Emergency Rule isolation imposed upon Özgür Gündem journalists Bilir Zana Kaya and İnan Kızılkaya kept in Silivri Prison No. 9.
The two journalists for Özgür Gündem are denied access to newspapers, books, journals, TV or radio. None of the books brought to them by their families were even allowed into the prison, and the books they requested from the prison library haven’t been given to them in a week.
Özgür Gündem newspaper’s Executive Editor Zana Bilir Kaya and Managing Editor İnan Kızılkaya were battered and detained along with 22 of their coleagues in the police raid on the newspaper’s Taksim headquarters on August 16.
22 journalists were released from the prosecutor’s office two days later after being charged with “resisting the police”, while Kaya and Kızılkaya were referred to İstanbul Courthouse after a 6 day long detention. The journalists were arrested on allegations of “membership to a terrorist organisation”, “propaganda for a terrorist organisation” and “disrupting the unity and integrity of the state” and transferred to Metris Type R Closed Prison.
They were transferred to Silivri Prison No.5 from there and finally on August 31, they were transferred to Silivri Prison No.9.
The arrest conditions haven’t improved for days and the Emergency Rule isolation continues.
Brother Musa Kaya took Gramsci - Prison Notebooks, Benjamin Franklin - Passages, John Berger - Ways of Seeing and Antoni Negri’s Empire and daily newspapers with him when he went to visit.
But the prison administration said “bringing in books, journals, newspapers from outside the prison is forbidden” and didn’t allow the books in. They also stated that the books, journals or newspapers sent by cargo won’t be accepted either.
PRISON LIBRARY DIDN’T LEND BOOKS
The journalists requested books from the prison library. But they still haven’t received the books they requested a week ago.
The journalists saw the first daily newspaper since they were arrested when the guards brought them Hürriyet the newspaper. Kaya and Kızılkaya asked for Cumhuriyet and Evrensel newspapers instead of Hürriyet, at which point they were told “those two papers can’t enter No.9”.
The journalists can’t use their yard time right and aren’t allowed out onto the common areas. Along with the newspaper and journal ban, a ban against TV and radio also continues.
