TURKISH PRISONS

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2646, 27 October 1919, Page 2

TURKISH PRISONS

ALLIES’ CLEAN SWEEP

NOISOME HENS OF STAMBOUE. Anyone who kept wild beasts in England under similar conditions would certainly bo prosecuted. This is one of flu; mildest passages in the report on Turkish prisons in Slambun! which Colonel W. il. S. Nickerson, president of the International Allied Sanitary Commission, made in February last, and which, with a number of other reports, is issued by the Foreign Office (says the ‘Daily Chronicle’). Under the terms of the armistice with Turkey Armenian and other native prisoners confined for political oflcnces were to be released. One of the first steps taken by the Allies was to visit the prisons, and the conditions in which the inmates, few of whom had been tried, were found beggars description. Tn these noisome dens, where disease was rampant, there was no medical treatment, only a few vermin-ridden beds, and if prisoners were not lucky enough to die quickly they died slowly of starvation, cold, and neglect. Under the heading ‘ Washing, Food, and Clothing ’ the following is the report on one prison :

No clothing is issued ; facilities for washing are given once every three to four months, and tiie floors are cleaned about as often. The nominal food ration is 6oz c» inferior bread daily and 50/, of bulgur, a native soup of coarse wheatmcal. The prison officials, however, often leave the prisoners without either the bread or soup for a day or more at a time.

No one in the prison had tasted food for the previous 24 hours, and when I asked them if they had enough to eat temporary pandemonium reigned. as they collected round the prison director. Hussein Fuad, screaming out “ He steals our food; il is he who sells our rations, and now when yon have left us he will have us beaten.”

On the average in this prison, where there were some 400 prisoners, three or four died weekly of their starvation and ill-treatment regime. When protests were made against the famine diet the officials reply : “ May you all die ; that will moan so many loss lor our country to feed.” In the women’s wards, where the same conditions ot frightfulness prevailed, one room, to which all the rest had access, contained a bad case of typhus and several cither neglected side women. This room had only one bed ; 52 women died in two and a-half months. One young girl, evidently with high fever, attracted my attention, and I elicited her story. ,She 0 an Armenian, aged 21, sentenced to imprisonment for 100 years, for, with ner brothers (also each undergoing 100 yea:s’ imprisonment), hilling another Imither. She had served two and a-half years of the sentence. It will thus he seen that she must have been under 13 when the alleged crime was committed, even if she herself took part in the murder; it" is monstrous to imprison such a child for her life.

In virtue of the armistice the High Commissioner, Vice-admiral Sir A. (Jalthorpe, ordered the instant release of all (frocks and Armenians who had either been detained # unduly long awaiting trial or who were imprisoned for offences other than P ule b criminal ones. In a demand addressed to the (fraud Vizier lie wet, further, and required the release even of those accused of murder if they had been awaiting trial over live mouths. The thorough reform of all the prisons and Hie closing of the worst was demanded. By April he was able to report Hat (he prison problem in Constantinople nad bun porarily ceased to he an acute one. dim change, however, was deeply resented hv some ol the prison officials, ,n;d if He Entente authorities released their vigil mice, he said, the old state of things would inevitably recur.