The ages of 605 people who applied to the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) as victims of ill-treatment or torture ranged between 5 and 70, according to a TİHV report published in June.
According to the report, while people from Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish Southeast and East comprise 24.6 percent of the population, 62.6 of the applicants are natives of those regions.
Applicants younger than 18 constitute 3.4 percent of the group, according to the TİHV report, which noted, “People from almost every age group, from 5 to 70, were victims of ill-treatment or torture in 2020.”
According to the report, a fourth of the applicants said they were not taken to the hospital for medical checks as detainees, which points to a violation of the regulations, opening up room for torture and ill-treatment.
The report, citing applicants’ accounts of the detentions, states that in the case of the 101 applicants, law enforcement did not leave the room during medical examinations. One hundred twenty-nine applicants say doctors did not heed their complaints, while 195 say doctors did not examine them properly. The doctor did not examine the detainees in line with their complaints in the case of 173 applicants, according to the report.
According to the report, 20 children with an average age of 10 applied as victims of ill-treatment. Seven of them, all of whom spoke Kurdish as their mother tongue, said they were mistreated due to ethnic discrimination.
Source: Turkish Minute
