ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 33 218. The following Monday, 15 December 1993, he was re-arrested following the Public Prosecutor's ex parte objection to his release. He was remanded in custody at the Diyarbakır E-Type prison for about 25 days before being transferred to Mardin prison for another 35 days. At a hearing on 17 February 1994 he was released. Proceedings were still pending before the Diyarbakır State Security Court. 219. He consulted the Diyarbakır prison doctor who prescribed medicine for him. He did not ask for a certificate. 11. Vedat Erten 220. Mr Erten was born in 1965 and was a practising lawyer in Diyarbakır at the material time. 221. On 23 November 1993 when leaving the Diyarbakır State Security Court around 11.50 a.m., he and a trainee lawyer were stopped by two plain-clothed officials who asked for their identity cards. After confirming Mr Erten's identity, he was obliged to go with them, giving his personal belongings to the trainee. 222. He was put in a car, blindfolded and taken to the Diyarbakır provincial gendarmerie command where he was kept for 18 days (17 days according to official records). He had been aware that colleagues of his had been detained in recent days. According to prosecution sources, this was because of accusations being made by a PKK confessor called Abdülhakim Güven. He realised he was being detained for the same reason, and was told as much by the detaining officers. 223. On entering the building he was asked if he was Vedat Erten and, when he confirmed that, he was slapped twice in the face, causing him to fall over. He was made to crouch down for 15 minutes and then told to strip off his clothes. Mention was made of taking him to a helicopter which, from a previous experience as a student detained by the JITEM in 1987, he had understood to refer to the form of torture known as “Palestinian hanging”. Ultimately his clothes were slung back at him and he was taken to some narrow place a few metres along where he was obliged to sit on a wet concrete floor, which smelt of toilets. He was ordered not to remove his blindfold. He heard the voices of some of his colleagues. 224. He was given about a quarter of a loaf of bread a day, sometimes a bit more if he asked for it. Drinking water was available in the toilet area where he was taken twice a day. One day no bread was distributed and he sensed that his colleagues must have been staging a protest. Loud music was played. 225. His interrogators ate food smelling of oil, onions and tomato purée. They threw their left-overs into a bin in the toilet, which the applicant took as a provocation to humiliate the detainees even more should they take food out of the bin in desperation. However, no prisoner touched the bin. Once