Istanbul: Old Prisons Converted to Unexpected Venues

If we know anything about Turkish prisons, we probably learned it from the 1978 film Midnight Express, loosely based on Billy Hayes' memoir of the same name. Hayes later apologized to Turkey for the unrealistic brutality of Turkish characters in the film.

The real story of Turkish prisons is as long and multi-layered as the country itself—starting with the Byzantines and taking on different forms through the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic.