The Crown system causes in the Middle East for the release prisoners. But journalists and activists remain behind bars

If turkish writer and economist Mehmet Altan for a medical check-up went his release from prison in Silivri Istanbul in 2018, determined to be a doctor, was severely anemic. Twenty-one months in prison had the 67-year-old iron levels brought so low, the doctor had examined at first suspected that he suffered an injury and was bleeding. done now, Mehmet social distancing practices are likely to mitigate the new coronavirus that from 27 March has killed more than 25,000 people and infected more than half a million worldwide. But isolated at home is not an option for her brother, the writer and journalist Ahmet Altan. The brothers were in September 2016, after Ahmet arrested a failed coup against Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been accused by the Turkish authorities on the eve of subliminal messages to be sent from the TV. While Mehmet was released following objections from the European Court of Human Rights in 2018, Ahmet remains in prison. The acclaimed novelist actions 70 years a long cell six steps and four steps wide with two other prisoners, and life with the same diet that Mehmet endangers health. “I am very concerned Ahmet,” says Mehmet TIME in the deserted lobby of a hotel in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district. custodial sentence “to be held for him in the middle of the eruption crown, equivalent to killing in my head.” Reduce In an effort to reduce the risk of outbreaks COVID-19, the ministries of justice in at least four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have switched or temporarily released prisoners. The cumulative amount of release is unprecedented, the figures represent the shadows that prisons of Muammar Gaddafi fled during the Libyan revolution, or militants that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 delivered them to encourage the US troops fighting in Iraq. But in many cases, were excluded political prisoners from COVID-19 mitigation measures – to the outrage of human rights groups condemn the wider region moving towards the criminalization and repression of freedom of speech and expression. “Every government should look like them empty prisons and reduce the interactions among inmates, particularly those in the group of cells,” said Amnesty International MENA Director Heba Morayef. “The problem for many of the most repressive governments in the Middle East, who are accustomed to mass incarceration for use as a way to silence the opposition. This actually makes the country more vulnerable dozens of political prisoners released this month compared to others. “Egypt, but tens of thousands remain imprisoned protested peacefully. Bahrain released about 1,500 detainees about 300 political prisoners, including the Institute after Bahrain’s rights and democracy. But the rights group notes that several prominent political prisoners with pre-existing medical conditions remain behind bars. Iran says bail to 85,000 prisoners, including political prisoners has issued. But campaigners for the rights of women imprisoned Nasrin Sotoudeh on March 16 began a hunger strike to demand that remain locked up for the release of thousands more. Stay up to date on the growing threat to global health, by signing up for our daily newsletter crown. In Syria, which reported in March its first case gear 23, after weeks of denials from officials in Damaso, President Bashar al-Assad for the early release of offering some criminals amnesty prisoners although expected the decree does not specify whether it is part to stop the measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 in any case, the amnesty will not apply to an unknown number of political prisoners in unofficial or secret facilities in the country, says Samer Aldeyaei, CEO and co-founder of based Turkey Free Syrian Lawyers. “Even now, the main reason given by the government for a long prison deaths in health problems such as heart attack,” says Aldeyaei TIME. “[The pandemic] is to kill a good excuse for the Assad regime and more people say that they died just from the crown.” On 23 March, a group expressed by 40 organizations for human rights “serious concern” about the fate of prisoners in the Middle East that prisons are often cramped and unhealthy, in which the health of many prisoners and already compromised. Egyptian prisons are especially known. Egypt does not allow independent inspection of its prisons and has not revealed how many people it holds, but the prisons remain dangerously overcrowded, despite the construction of 15 new plants by 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. Occupant have reported, in rotational movements of concrete pavements and the cells with a maximum capacity of 10 to sleep, it can contain up to 40 or 50 prisoners. With services such as maximum Tora Cairo security prison known as “The Scorpion” products for personal care products such as soap, toothbrushes and shaving kits are not provided to detainees and the basic needs received from relatives were confiscated. series are abject conditions in the prison system, where running water is not granted access, toilets are dirty, and visits to hospital emergency require a permit from the Director, regardless of the opinion of the doctor. “We have witnessed the death of many prisoners, even if their diseases are manageable,” says Amr Magdi, a director Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. While he says the group does not want to give the impression that the call for the release of the perpetrators of violent crimes or those who are a danger to society, “our position is arrested by no means peaceful exercise of their rights to be solved first. we are talking about tens of thousands in Egypt and Syria and hundreds in the Gulf states. “Some of these autocratic governments will say to the crown as an opportunity, Magdi” emergency search and pursue normalization of free speech. ” On 18 March, Egyptian authorities arrested activists for the rights of the four women as prominent protested demanding the release of political prisoners unjustly held. Egypt has also forced a Guardian journalist to leave the country and the bureau chief of the New York Times reprimanded after she cites a study that the government of the numbers of cases crown of Egypt questioned. Turkey also arrested at least seven journalists for “spreading panic” after they reported on the deaths or new cases of Corona, according to Reporters Without Borders. Turkey also announced last week it would take a change in the law accelerated to 100,000 prisoners, or about a third of the prison population, such as house arrest is substituted for an early release, alternatives to detention. But the provision is not convicted prisoners on trial or for terrorist crimes or crimes against the state. Since 2016, Turkey has made long-term detention or thousands under terrorism charges without evidence condemn the acts of violence committed, incited violence or logistical assistance outlawed armed groups. Ahmet Altan is not eligible under the premature for the dismissal. “You have gone too far with my brother,” said Mehmet. “It ‘s crazy that they plan to take out new killer on the roads, but put the life of a novelist, the three did not write to the government of the crown, as it is at risk.” Every morning in prison, is said in the court would and behind her screaming cell step that he was not afraid of life; that life has to fear. The inmates in adjacent cells, have been prohibited from mixing would scream again sentence him. “Time slows down the prison, but the brain goes in the opposite direction, begins to do so,” he says. “You never limit a writer. Even if you stop your body, you can not shut their minds.” Please send tips, leads and stories from the front to [email protected].
Picture copyright by Bulent Kilic AFP / Getty Images