RIGHTS-TURKEY: Government Begins Consultations to Help Eliminate State Abuses

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Sep 27 2000 (IPS) - Turkey’s government has taken a step toward confronting its dismal human rights record, but critics here charge that it is merely a whitewashing exercise that will provide no relief to beleaguered residents.

“It is a nice feeling that we could testify to torture in front of state officials,” says Cafer Demir, chairperson of the southeast branch of Elazig Human Rights Association (IHD). “I feel so good. This could be a real opportunity if the state would draw the necessary conclusions from this meeting,” he told IPS.

The government began this week a series of consultations bringing state and local officials, non governmental organisations (NGOs), trade unions, political parties, public opinion leaders and human rights activists together to discuss that state of human rights in the country and what to do about it. Ten regional consultations are scheduled up to Dec. 1, after which a national human rights meeting will be held in the capital Ankara.

The programme of discussions will continue on a smaller scale throughout 2001, says Rüstü Kazim Yücelen, the state minister responsible for human rights.

At Monday’s opening consultation held in the southeast Tunceli province an upbeat Yucelen predicted that Turkey will have solved its human rights problem by next year.

“By 2001, human rights violations will be eradicated once and for all, this is a national mobilisation,” he said.

Turkey is expected to sign a partnership protocol with the European Union (EU) in 2002 in order to start negotiations for full membership in the union. But its human rights record is seen as one of the biggest hurdles to achieving that goal.

“It is good that local NGOs are included in the discussion, as well as the pro-Kurdish HADEP (People’s Democracy Party) which has been a traditional target of the security forces,” says Jonathan Sugden, who heads the Turkey desk of the international rights group, Human Rights Watch.

Yet, Sugden doubts if the entire exercise “is anything more than something to show off to NGOs, opposition parties, the media and critics in the EU.”

Sugden says he appreciates the officials’ efforts to listen to the public, but, he continued, “the root causes of this sickness are well-known.”

“There is one simple and straightforward test as to whether or not a state or government initiative on torture is sincere – are they abolishing incommunicado detention. If they aren’t, they are not sincere,” he told IPS.

“The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (of which Turkey is a member), the UN Committee against Torture (of which Turkey is a member), the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the European Court of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Turkish Human Rights Association, the Turkish Human Rights Foundation, Mazlum-Der are unanimous that incommmunicado detention is the single most important contributory factor to torture,” Sugden recalls. “The authorities should abolish it for all detainees.”

“The government campaign as a whole is an attempt to whitewash its dirty image,” Eren Keskin, chairperson of the Istanbul branch of IHD says. “Unless incommunicado detention is eliminated every attempt to discuss the causes of torture remains a farce,” she told IPS. “The police stations should be opened to public examination, torturers should be tried and severely punished, and necessary amendments should be made to the laws.”

Monday’s meeting in Tunceli was attended by 145 delegates including governors and security chiefs from six provinces. Thirty- five participants spoke at the seven-hour long closed session.

It was perhaps the perfect place to begin these consultations as Turkey’s 10 southeast provinces including Tunceli and Diyarbakir have remained under states of emergency throughout the last 15 years of armed strife between the Kurdish guerrilla PKK and the Turkish security forces.

At least 30,000 people including PKK guerrillas, security force members, journalists, lawyers, politicians and human rights activists have been killed as a result of the conflict. Some 500 people have been listed as having disappeared while in custody and more than 3,000 villages have been forcibly depopulated.

“I have testified to violations in Elazig, Bingol and Tunceli provinces,” Demir said. “Five hundred villages have been forcibly depopulated in this area, 21 people have disappeared while in custody, eight people including a journalist and a lawyer were assassinated and their bodies were thrown in a creek, 12 newspapers and magazines are barred from circulation and the ‘food embargo’ still continues.”

Aimed at restricting guerrilla access to local food resources, the Turkish government rations basic food supplies in these provinces in what residents refer to as a “food embargo”.

During the meeting speakers are reported to have demanded constitutional amendments, the lifting of the state of emergency, disbanding of village guards and special armed teams, and a general amnesty and recognition of Kurdish identity.