The French newspaper Libération published an article dealing with the ever-worsening situation in the Turkish prisons.

The article titled "Prisons: Turkey develops "an inhumane model”, written by Jérome Berlioux and Marie Tihon, highlights the current situation in the Silivri prison near Istanbul, describing it as "home to opponents of the government, convicted of "terrorism" after rigged hearings”.

Some of the 23,000 prisoners, often held in solitary confinement, are serving long-lasting pre-trial detentions there, it noted.

The article said: “The judicial news in Turkey corresponds to a myriad of political trials that the coronavirus pandemic has barely interrupted: the Gezi trial, Cumhuriyet, Oda TV, Amnesty International, lawyers from the CHD, elected members of the HDP... We are talking here about hearings that resemble morbid plays where one accuses without evidence, one pleads without being heard and one listens without impartiality. They generally result in convictions, press releases denouncing the lack of independence of the judiciary and, in the end, press articles in which the names of the accused end up being confused and the indictments seem reduced to one word: terör.”

The article added: “A few decades ago, as in the 1990s at the height of the war against the Kurdish PKK guerrillas, repression rhymed with torture and kidnapping in Turkey. Now it has taken another form: the use of the judiciary for repressive purposes, and often against the law.”