For example, a female political prisoner was brutally tortured at Istanbul Police Headquarters after her arrest in August 1995, and is subsequently totally dependent on fellow prisoners to help her eat and dress as a result of her injuries. During her 13 days of detention prior to being brought before a judge, she was denied access to medical care. With no access to the outside world, they are at the mercy of their interrogators. Torture is often applied to extract confessions, to illicit information about illegal organizations, to intimidate detainees into becoming police informers or as informal punishment for assumed support of illegal organizations. Torture methods include being stripped naked and blindfolded, hosing with pressurized ice-cold water, hanging for long periods by the arms or wrists behind the back, electric shocks to the body including sexual organs, beating the soles of the feet, death threats, sexual harassment, rape, rape threats, threatened and actual forced virginity examinations and other forms of sexual abuse.
Government officials admit that torture occurs but deny that it is systematic.
In fact, they justify torture claiming that it is closely aimed to the State's fight against terrorism. However, many cases occur in western Turkey, outside of the zone of conflict. Until all detainees have full access to lawyers, doctors and relatives, police stations will remain fortresses of arbitrary state power, places of secrecy and fear where torture can be practiced without restraint. Although there are strong cultural inhibitions against reporting sexual torture, Amnesty International nevertheless frequently receives allegations from women of rape and insertions of objects into the vagina or anus, and from men of twisting of the testicles and insertion of objects into the anus. In November 1993, Meral Danis Besta, an attorney at the Human Rights Association who represents local villagers in numerous formal complaints of human rights violations, was arrested.