Today is the 63rd anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.
The Universal Declaration was adopted three years after the foundation of the United Nations on 10 December 1948. Thus the humanity gained most basic human rights document.
The idea of all human beings have rights and immunities without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status could not find enough protection all over the world.
Security based policies that have been developed after the attacks on 11 September 2001 were also applied in 2011. NATO’s new strategy document and the missile shield system showed that the world is again inclined to wars. The restriction of freedoms and rights by the security based policies on the grounds that “terror” reinforced militarist authoritarian administration viewpoints. On the other hand economic crisis that was caused by globalisation policies of the international capital had the world under its spell. Therefore peoples of the world are subjected to unemployment, hunger and poverty together with the violations of human rights among which rising xenophobia, racism and hate discourse became prominent in 2011.
However, large masses of people all over the world protested in the streets in order to say “Stop!” to this trend and to protect their rights. Because of the intolerance shown by the states/governments against the protests -especially in our region during the developments that named as ‘Arab Spring’- particularly as a result of intervention and suppression initiatives against the mass demonstrations, serious human rights violations including the right to life has been experienced. In some countries due to the evolution of the process into armed conflict and civil war, the violations of human rights were accelerated.
In 2011 hundreds of thousands of people who had been left alone with their own fate after natural disasters -earthquakes, floods, droughts, and so on- in different regions of the world, has been subjected to violations of several rights, particularly housing, nutrition, health, property, work and the right to education.
Looking 2011 from Turkey, the Kurdish Issue continues to be the most important ring of the general problem of human rights and democracy in Turkey. Obstacles in the process of dialogue and solution, has led to the escalation of violence and conflict environment, and consequently alarming increase in the violations of right to life.
In addition we see the titles such as violations of the ban of torture, the specially authorised heavy penal courts, violations of the right to a fair trial and arbitrary and prolonged detentions in various cases which are closely engaged public opinion, freedom of thought and expression, journalists and human rights defenders in detention, deaths in prisons, conscientious objection, violence against women, environmental and ecological issues, losses in economic and social rights, and interventions of the right of assembly and demonstration has come forward in 2011.
In 2011 Turkey, significant HR violations took place against the people who want to use the freedom of thought and expression. As is known, both of the rights are the sine qua non condition of pluralist democracy and the first step in the struggle for all the rights and freedom. Because any view which cannot be expressed could not find a chance to remove its deficiencies and to survive.
The judicial harassment on the political parties and social opposition organizations that conduct legal political activities in Turkey has been continuously applied and they are treated as illegal armed organization.
Penal cases are constantly launched against political parties and formations such as the Peace and Democracy Party, the Socialist Democracy Party, Social Freedom Platform, the Socialist Party of the Oppressed and against the Confederation of Public Workers’ Union (KESK), one of the most important social institutions of the opposition, and their executives. Conviction of 25 executives of the KESK including the chairperson on arbitrary and unjust grounds; launching cases against the members and executives of the Freedom and Solidarity Party and the People’s Houses in connection with the incidents in Hopa District could be shown as examples of the severe violations of the right to organize. In this context, we would like to emphasize once again the freedom of thought and expression in the human rights week of 2011 with the slogan of “we want to express ourselves, not to testify”.
Another distinguishing point in terms of human rights in 2011, was unlawful practices of the Special Authorised and Charged Heavy Penal Courts. In other words, the violations of the right to fair trial have continued to increase in 2011. The clouds of fear on all sectors of social opposition were created with the several investigations conducted by these specially authorized prosecutors and the courts. Punishment through the judiciary now has become a systematic method in Turkey. It is clear that these courts which are the successors of the State Security Courts should be closed.
The situation of human rights defenders is not independent from the above-mentioned developments. The Human Rights Association’s (IHD) Vice Chairperson, Lawyer Muharram Erbey IHD’s Honour Committee member, publisher and author Ragıp Zarakolu and IHD’s several Branch Chairpersons and Executives are pre-trial detainees. There are several investigations and cases launched against the member and executives of the IHD.
In addition, these investigations and prosecutions are becoming commonplace not only for the members and executives of the IHD but for other human rights defenders, lawyers, academics, writers and journalists. In this regard, we would like to mention that these coercions should be immediate ended in accordance with the United Nations declaration on the protection of human rights defenders.
Of course, another important issue of 2011 in terms of human rights is the process of making a new constitution that will guarantee fundamental rights and freedoms without any reservation.
It is worth looking at the various violations of rights categories that we tried to mention with the in the light of the records received by our institutions in general.
Between 1 January to 28 November 2011, 101 soldiers, 163 militants, 21 civilians, 32 police officers, 13 temporary village guards and 330 people in total lost their lives and 181 soldiers, 14 militants, 40 civilians, 37 police officers, 12 temporary village guards in total 284 people were wounded in the clashes. 273 people were killed and 243 people were wounded after the acceleration in clashes on 2 July 2011.
Deaths as a result of the excessive use of force of the security forces continued in 2011. 19 people were killed in extra-judicial killings, stop warnings and in the random firing incidents from the beginning of the year until 28 November 2011. Nine murders were committed by unknown assailants during the same period. Also in the same period 35 people in prisons, 4 people in detention centres died.
In 2011 the “zero tolerance to torture” discourse continued to be just a mere discourse. The number of people who applied to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) with torture and ill-treatment allegations is 473 from the beginning of the year till the end of November 2011. From those applications 207 people claimed that they were subjected to torture in the same year. The frequency of torture in locations outside the officially registered detention places (streets, in vehicles, at the time of meetings and demonstrations) is increasing and impunity encourages ill-treatment and torture. Cases were not launched ex officio against the persons who inflicted torture; the few cases that were launched are taking too long and generally resulting with an acquittal or the minimum sentences. Moreover, there are regulations such as “restriction of time” still existing legislation which is incompatible with the understanding of the absolute prohibition of torture. On the other hand, the military penal and disciplinary places are still like closed boxes without any monitoring, despite all kinds of intense allegations of torture and ill-treatment. The public could only get information about torture and ill-treatment in these places only if a death occurs. Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture which is closely related with these kinds of places was ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) before the General Election in 2011. A National Prevention Mechanism should be established within a year in accordance with the Optional Protocol which was adopted to deal with the torture and ill-treatment. This mechanism will not be effective unless it is not set up with human rights organizations.
There had been serious interventions to the right of meetings and demonstrations again in 2011. Six people died and271 people were wounded as a result of interventions. Chemical apparatus (tear gas) plays an important role in the excessive and disproportionate use of force by security officers. Indeed, all the death incidents were the results of the effect of the gas or the hit of the gas bomb shells. In addition, 2604 people were detained and 418 of them were arrested during such interventions. All kinds of ill-treatment including torture were experienced during the interventions.
The number of prisoners held in prisons in 2011 and has continued to increase. The number of prisoners reached to 124,074 as of 30 April 2011. 53,796 of the all prisoners were pre-trial detainees, 70,278 of them were convicts. The number of juveniles in prisons is 2290. The number of pre-trial detainees and convicts for juveniles are respectively 2072 and 218. While 42.4% of adult prisoners and 90.4% of juveniles are pre-trial detainees. The high ratio of arrests show that the repressive regime of an arrest. There are 243 patients in prisons, 135 of them have been waiting to be released due to severe disease.
The violations in the field of freedom of press increased considerably in 2011. Currently, the number of journalists who had been pre-trial detainees is 71. According to our findings the number of suspended newspapers and magazines is 7 according. The number of restriction of access verdicts taken against the websites are 15506.
In 2011, 322 people were sentenced to 673 years, 3 months and 20 days of imprisonment while 57 people were sentenced to fines amounting to 225,196 TL in connection with the cases concerning freedom of expression. Unfortunately, no step has been taken to improve the situation in the field of freedom of expression. There are at least 14 regulations in The Turkish Penal Code (TCK) that restrict freedom of expression. Moreover there are several other regulations that limit the freedom of expression provisions in other laws including the Fighting with Terror Law.
Diyarbakır Penal Court of Peace No. 1 adjudicated to confiscate the poster that were printed for the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on 26 June 2011 by Human Rights Association, Human Rights foundation of Turkey, Diyarbakır Bar Association, Organisation of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (MAZLUMDER), Diyarbakır Medical Chamber, Confederation of Public Employees Trade Unions (KESK) Diyarbakır Platform on charges of “insulting Turkish Nation, the Republic of Turkey, the organs and institutions of the State” under Article 301 of TPC on 24 June 2011.
The presence of the regulations that facilitates the arrest measure in the Criminal Procedure Law, provisions related to the secret testimony, wiretapping, the technical intelligence practices, the obstacles in front of the freedom of expression can be listed as the major obstacles for the right to fair trial. In this context, Ergenekon, KCK and Hopa events, etc. investigations has gained a dimension of mass detentions and arrests. For example, in connection with the “KCK Investigation” 4815 people were detained almost all of them are members or executives of the BDP and then 2,057 of them were arrested in the last 7 months (March-November 2011). The campaign of detentions and arrests still continues.
Turkey still preserves the characteristic of being a country that upholds the intense discrimination and violence against women. Approximately 3 women were killed every day in 2011.
World economic crisis was billed to the workers. In addition, in terms of workplace health and safety at work, work accidents and occupational diseases are increasing due to the lack of effective control mechanisms. The workers’ right to have a healthy life was taken from their hands. In the first 11 months of 2011, 506 workers died and 2818 workers were wounded as a result of occupational accidents occurred.
In the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration we would like to state that people have the right to live without poverty and fear and they have to resist for their rights.
Joint Public Statement of the Executive Boards of the Human Rights Foundation Turkey (HRFT) and the Human Rights Association (IHD)