TURKEY: Human Rights Abuses Condemned By Amnesty International

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Oct 1 1996 (IPS) - The international human rights organisation Amnesty International Tuesday launched a year-long worldwide campaign to press Turkey to halt violations of human rights across the troubled south European state.

“Successive Turkish governments have failed to fulfill the obligations they have freely entered into international law,” said Pierre Sane, secretary-general of Amnesty International, during a Tuesday press conference in Istanbul.

He said that the Turkish state was enjoying “exemption from scrutiny, criticism and sanction” by the international community “because of its strategic position as border guard to the western world, as well as because of its commercial and economic weight”.

Sane said international bodies like the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations were failing to act even though they knew “what Amnesty knows about torture, killing and disappearance” in Turkey.

Turkish foreign minister Tansu Ciller, speaking after Sane’s conference, denied the charges. “As ever, the newest (Amnesty) report is completely biased and neglects the improvements achieved by the Turkish government in improving its human rights situation.”

She accused Amnesty of encouraging the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the guerrilla force that has waged a bitter war against Ankara’s security forces in the south-east of the country since 1984.

She condemned Amnesty for refusing to denounce the PKK as a “terrorist organisation” — an act that she said damaged its “reliability and reputation” and exposed its intention to win it the status of recognised ‘combatants’ in a ‘conventional’ war.

However an Amnesty report on Turkey released Tuesday, did not spare the PKK, highlighting at least 400 “deliberate and arbitrary killings of prisoners and civilians” committed by its cadres between 1993 and 1995.

The clandestine Turkish leftist armed group the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front was similarly accused of extra- judicial executions against civilians in the report, titled Turkey — No Security Without Human Rights.

The report documents the rise in human rights violations in Turkey during the 1990s and calls for legal reforms and Turkish government action, as well as international action.

Amnesty said that the 1990s have seen “a steady erosion of human rights in Turkey,” as Turkish authorities attempted to excuse, ignore or cover up abuses like torture. political killings or ‘disappearances’ in the name of “national security”.

According to Amnesty 1995 alone saw 35 ‘disappearances’, 15 reported deaths in custody as a result of torture and more than 80 political killings in Turkey — only the tip of a declared iceberg since Ankara stepped up counter-insurgency operations against the PKK in the mid 1980s.

Though Sane said that some improvements have been recorded in the reduction of numbers of people jailed for political activities, disappearances, “a practice imported from South American dictatorships,” are visibly on the increase.

“This is the time to stop confusing the interests of national security with the interests of the security establishment,” Sane said. “Enough is enough”.

Arie Zwanenburg, a police officer from The Netherlands and member of Amnesty’s ‘Police Group’ present at the Istanbul briefing linked the prevalence of torture in Turkey to the Turkish security forces’ dependence on confession instead of independently gathered evidence that could be corroborated and presented in court.

He also noted that the increased use of torture in the war torn south-east was spreading elsewhere in the country. “The increase of cases of torture in the western parts of the country is actually related with the spread of forcible interrogation in relation with war practices in the southeast,” he told IPS.

“Although they indirectly admit that torture is widespread in the south east, Turkish police claims that the cases of torture in Turkey’s western parts are incidental,” said Zwanenburg. He has been working with Turkish police officers on human rights training.

But Amnesty said conditions still existed in Turkey to see reforms that could decisively change the situation.

“We want to remind the international community and those countries which have special relations with Turkey of their obligations to ensure that if Turkey continues to refuse to cooperate with international human rights bodies, then action must be taken to hold Turkey to account,” Sane told journalists.

The group also calls on countries selling arms and military equipment to Turkey to make sure that the arms and equipment they supply is not used to commit human rights violations.

Amnesty has documented the use of U.S. and British-made helicopters and armoured cars in operations where major human rights violations by the security forces have been recorded in the south east, Sane said.

Sane said Amnesty was not launching a campaign against Turkey but “a campaign for Turkey — whose people are admired and respected for their kindness and hospitality by all who visit”.

He maintained that Amnesty was not calling for economic sanctions but for pressure to be brought on Turkey to comply with its responsibilities under international conventions.

The group recommends Turkey conduct thorough and impartial investigations into all cases of disappearances, release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience, reduce maximum period of detention without charge (currently 30 days) and to advise judges that imprisonment for expression of non- violent opinions violates international treaties signed by Turkey.

“In launching this campaign, we are sending a message to both the Turkish and other governments that we will be lobbying from around the world to end erosion of human rights in Turkey.”