RIGHTS: NGOs Urge UN Action against Repression in Turkey

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug 1 2001 (IPS) - Non-governmental organisations called on the United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Wednesday to intercede with authorities in Turkey to end the inhumane situations of the country’s prisons and to release Kurdish political prisoners.

The Geneva-based Centre Europe-Tiers Monde (CETIM) requested that the Subcommission conduct an independent and impartial investigation of the repeated interventions by the Turkish security forces in the country’s prisons, reportedly responsible for the deaths of “numerous inmates” since 1994.

Malik Ozden, of CETIM, stated that arbitrary arrests, torture, attacks on freedoms of opinion and expression, prison repression and the rejection of the minority Kurd culture are “common currency” in Turkey.

Another independent organisation, France-Libertés, headed by Danielle Mitterrand, appealed to the UN Subcommission to take up the case of four Turkish lawmakers of Kurdish origins who have been behind bars for the last seven years.

The Subcommission is an advisory body of the UN Commission on Human Rights and began its three-week sessions Monday, to conclude Aug 17.

The situation of the Kurds, a people who for centuries have inhabited lands dominated by Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, was presented during the Subcommission’s examination of human rights abuses in the world’s colonial and dependent territories.

Andrea Collins, representing France-Libertés, said her organisation considers it unacceptable that the four Kurd legislators continue to be prisoners.

The case involves Leyla Zana, Selim Sadak, Hatip Diclé and Orhan Dogan, elected in 1991. Upon taking office, the four challenged the Turkish parliamentary protocol by expressing themselves in their native Kurd language.

Furthermore, Zana and Diclé appeared in the National Assembly wearing the traditional Kurdish colours of red, yellow and green.

Three years later, a special Security Court in Ankara state condemned the four legislators to 15 years in prison on charges of belonging to an irregular armed organisation.

Collins pointed out to the 26 independent experts serving on the Subcommission that the Security Court was a specially-created legal institution, therefore its rulings cannot be considered independent and impartial.

None of the four Kurdish deputies has been accused of violent acts, stressed the human rights activist.

According to Amnesty International, the lawmakers were imprisoned for peacefully expressing their convictions, said Collins.

The European Court of Human Rights just two weeks ago issued a condemnation against Turkey for having carried out an unjust legal trial against the four.

Collins, however, also turned her criticism on the European Court because its opinion did not acknowledge that the legislators had been imprisoned for merely expressing their political opinions.

Ozden, meanwhile, called on the Subcommission to focus attention on the hunger strike under way in Turkish prisons as inmates protest the regimen of isolation to which they are subjected.

As a result of the Turkish authorities’ indifference, 29 hunger strikers have died, said the CETIM activist. The most recent victim was a woman, Sevgi Erdogan, 47, on Jul 14.

In total, 180 inmates continue the hunger strike, while some 50 have been released for health reasons, said Ozden, citing reports from the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV).

Ozden charged that repression is intensifying in Turkey against the pro-Kurd Hadep party. In May, 50 of its members were detained in Ankara, and another 72 in Içel and Aydin.

So far this year the TIHV has received several hundred reports of torture committed by Turkish forces in the province of Diyarbakir.

It was there, in southeast Turkey, that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) took up arms in 1984 with the goal of establishing an independent government.

The Kurds’ clashes with the Turkish armed forces since then have claimed more than 35,000 lives. But the PKK guerrilla activity began to wane in 1999, when Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan issued an order from his prison cell for a new strategy of peaceful struggle.