Prison

The Citizens' Protection Ministry has submitted a bill to Parliament which, among other things, bans the transfer of detainees convicted of terrorist offenses to rural prisons and foresees much stricter criteria for furlough.

Leave rights will also be linked to the severity of the crime for which prisoners are convicted.

New legislation drafted by the Citizens' Protection Ministry seeks to crack down on what it describes as "mounting abuses" of the prison leave and transfer system.

In the second sweep at the capital's high-security Korydallos Prison in as many weeks, guards seized a large number of makeshift weapons early on Tuesday.

A search late on Wednesday night on a wing at the capital's high-security Korydallos Prison where financial crimes and terrorism convicts are serving time turned up several weapons, as well as cellphones and computer hard drives.

A former basketball coach who had been convicted for sexually molesting 36 boys on the island of Crete has been released from prison after a decision by the Misdemeanor Council of Grevena in northern Greece.

Turkish prosecutors on May 8 said that 44 inmates in an Istanbul prison have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a statement, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said two inmates and 42 others who came in contact with them tested positive at Silivri Prison.

Turkey's Justice Ministry has decided to extend the measures it has taken in the country's prisons, with respect to suggestions from the Coronavirus Science Board, until May 15.

The UN's special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Fabian Salvioli, said on Wednesday that measures to protect against COVID-19 in overcrowded jails should not lead to amnesties or pardons being granted to people convicted of serious violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes.

The director of the school in the Avlonas Prison for Young Offenders, in northern Attica, appealed to Sotiris Tsiodras, head of the Health Ministry's task force fighting the new coronavirus, to take additional measures to protect the health of inmates.

The release of thousands of prisoners started early April 15 after a law lowering the time limits on conditional release was approved by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and published on the Official Gazette.