TURKEY: Former Political Prisoner Assesses Ankaras Progress on Human Rights

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brian Kenety

BRUSSELS, Oct 18 2000 (IPS) - Turkish human rights activists said Wednesday that Ankara has made significant progress towards meeting the political criteria required to accede to the European Union (EU), but that it needed to implement concrete measures to guarantee basic rights for its citizens.

“The respect for human rights, of minorities, of democracy in general, of respect for the citizens of the country are in hand,” Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) honorary president Akim Birdal told a news conference convened at the European Parliament here.

He said that Turkey was preparing an encouraging national programme for improving the countrys human rights situation that the government says is not tied to EU accession.

“Whether that is true or not, we want to see that programme respected and backed by new legislation. The first steps (Ankara) should take is to declare a general amnesty because the prisons are overflowing with (political) detainees” and to abolish the death penalty, said Biral, himself a former political prisoner.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, is now putting the final touches on the Union’s Accession Partnership document for Turkey, which is due for final adoption in November.

In June 1993, EU ministers meeting in Denmark agreed that candidates for EU membership must satisfy a number of economic and political conditions which have come to be known as the “Copenhagen criteria”.

In broad terms, these criteria require that the candidate country achieve “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities” before the formal negotiations for accession to the Union can begin.

In September 1999, Birdal, who had been imprisoned for a speech he gave while serving as president of the IHD, was temporarily released, ahead of the EU Helsinki Summit in December, only to be re-arrested in early 2000. Activists saw Birdals release last year and a partial amnesty of journalists as manoeuvres to avoid official embarrassment at the Summit.

IHD acting president Hüsnü Öndül told reporters that activists were pushing Ankara to make changes to the Constitution within the next six months that would guarantee the right to free speech and ensure that civilians be judged not by military authorities, but under a civil procedure that is truly independent.

In the past 8 months, over 400 persons have been tortured while in the hands of Turkish authorities Öndül noted Wednesday as he presented the report ‘The Copenhagen Political Criteria and Turkey’, which was done by his association.

In a report this September, the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Turkey of widespread and persistent torture, violations of free expression and minority language rights, continued instability in the southeastern part of the country, restrictions on the wearing of head scarves, and inadequate protection for refugees.

HRW is urging the EU to develop a detailed accession plan for Turkey, specifying unambiguous and measurable benchmarks, as Ankara “has a history of avoiding problems and placating critics with half-measures and empty gestures”.

Countries wishing to become members of the EU “are expected not just to subscribe to the principles of democracy and the rule of law, but actually to put them into practice in daily life”, according to the Copenhagen criteria.

Although noting substantial progress in the area of human rights, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament last week adopted by an overwhelming majority a report by French MEP Philippe Morillon on the state of the accession negotiations with Turkey which said that the country does not currently meet the Copenhagen criteria.

Morillons report encourages Ankara to step up its efforts towards democratisation, notably with regard to the separation of powers (especially as regards the impact of the role of the army on Turkish political life) and to implement the UN conventions on political, civil, social and cultural rights which Turkey recently signed.

European Parliamentarians (MEPs) had welcomed the adoption as a “reference and working document” by the Turkish Council of Ministers of the report drawn up by the Turkish Supreme Co-ordination Council for Human Rights, which proposes major constitutional reforms.

However, the Foreign Affairs Committee wants concrete measures to be added to protect the rights of minorities and to ensure freedom of expression and association and the independence of the media.

The Copenhagen criteria also states that integration of minority populations into society is a condition of democratic stability and the Kurdish issue has long been on the international agenda and a focal point of criticism against Turkey.

“I believe that the preconditions which were missing before are now in place” for Turkey to meet the Copenhagen criteria, said Birdal, and he called on Ankara to push ahead and find a solution to the Kurdish problem. Part of that solution, he stressed, meant an amnesty for political prisoners, including Kurds.

The European Parliament stresses the need for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict, one which both respects Turkey’s territorial integrity and includes political, economic and social reforms and also wants Ankara and the Turkish Grand National Assembly to assist the Armenian population in Turkey.

The foreign affairs committee last week welcomed the adoption of the law suspending the prosecution of, and sanctions for, press and broadcasting offences.

Pending reform of the criminal code to make it compatible with the principle of freedom of expression, the European Parliament committee is calling for an amnesty for breaches of the law committed by the press.

Czech President Vaclav Havel this week added his name to an appeal from the International Pen Club to Turkey for the release of Esber Yagmurdereli ¡ a Kurdish activist, journalist and playwright. More than 200 writers from 12 countries have called on Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit to release Yagmurdereli who has defended the rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey for several decades.

Ankara recently adopted a law suspending the prosecution of, and sanctions for, press and broadcasting offences. The London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International welcomed the acquittal of Turkish journalist Nadire Mater on charges of having insulted and vilified the Turkish military. She had faced up to 12 years in prison for publishing interviews with Turkish soldiers in her book ‘Mehmet’s Book’.

The soldiers told Mater of atrocities they committed against Kurdish militants, of the brutality senior soldiers showed conscripts and of their involvement in smuggling and drug use.