Turkey police torturing and abusing coup detainees, says Amnesty

The London-based group said on Sunday that some of those being held were being "subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, in official and unofficial detention centres in the country".

"Reports of abuse including beatings and rape in detention are extremely alarming, especially given the scale of detentions that we have seen in the past week. The grim details that we have documented are just a snapshot of the abuses that might be happening in places of detention", John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe director, said.

"It is absolutely imperative that Turkish authorities halt these abhorrent practices and allow international monitors to visit all these detainees in the places they are being held."

Dalhuisen added that the Turkish government has remained silent, despite the images and videos of the abuse being widely broadcast across the country

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under fire over the imposition of a state of emergency in the wake of the coup bid, which Ankara says is no different to similar measures taken by France last year.

This week, Erdogan declared the three-month state of emergency, as authorities rounded up suspects accused of staging the coup.

Authorities have arrested thousands of soldiers, judges, prosecutors and lawyers as over 20,000 people in state education and a similar number in the private sector were stripped of their licences, sacked or detained.

According to Amnesty, police have held detainees in stress positions, denied them food, water and medical treatment, verbally abused and threatened them and subjected them to beatings and torture, including rape and sexual assault.

Two lawyers in Ankara working on behalf of detainees said that detainees said they witnessed senior military officers in detention being raped with a truncheon or finger by police officers.

"Amnesty International urges the Turkish authorities to adhere to their obligations under international human rights law and not to abuse the state of emergency by trampling on the rights of detainees," said John Dalhuisen.