The Prison Commission of the Progressive Lawyer’s Association CHD has published an interview on its radio program about pit type prisons, in which the character of these isolation prisons is described.
We publish a segment of the program with English transcription.
“QUESTION: What is a pit-type prison? Let’s start with that, because most people still don’t know much about it…..
ANSWER: The term ‘ pit-type prison ’ is actually the name given to these prisons by the prisoners held there to describe the place. They say this for the following reason.
These prisons make you feel as if you are inside a pit. As if you are at the bottom of a pit. They are enclosed spaces where you can only see the sky as a line, where you cannot see properly and cannot breathe fresh air.
They have been under construction in our country since 2021-2022. (0:50) And recently, mass transfers to these prisons have begun. The Ministry of Justice’s website lists a total of 43 such prisons.
And there are three different types of official names for them. There are prisons classified as high-security prisons. There are 23 of these.
There are 13 classified as Y-type closed prisons. And there are 7 classified as S-type closed prisons. In total, there are 43 of these special types of prisons in our country.
The Y-type and high-security prisons in particular have very serious structural problems. The most fundamental of these is the absence of a prison yard in front of the cells.
There is an area where they can dry their laundry and benefit from the sun. This is called the prison yard. We can describe this place as an area where they can stretch their legs. However, there is no such area in this type of prison. Therefore, the detainees are held in their cells for 22 and a half or 23 hours. …”
READ more about the background and history of these prisons on our webpage
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS (IS4PP) 
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