No to coup d’état, no to authoritarianism!
A total of 44 years has passed since the September 12 coup d’etat but we are still governed by the coup constitution dated 1982. The 12 September mindset is still at work with the institutions it introduced into our lives with the coup constitution, as well as many practices such as the ignorance of human rights norms and standards, principles of democracy and the laws in force; the bans and oppressions that menace the enjoyment of the fundamental rights and freedoms such as freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association, the right to assembly and demonstration; support of hate attacks and racism; the wide-spread use of torture and ill-treatment to silence all dissident voices; arrests and sentences without any legal basis; existence of hundreds of prisons with new ones added every year; with practices leaving prisoners to death, such as systematic isolation, aggravated life imprisonment, torture and ill-treatment; dismissal of dissidents on the pretext of security investigations or unfounded accusations and similar huge problems.
The military coup of 12 September 1980 which took place at a time when the Kurdish issue was put on the agenda politically, the Kurdish issue has become a question of violence and security with inhuman torture practices and threats of capital punishment in so many prisons where political prisoners were kept, mainly in Diyarbakır prison. Unfortunately, it has been insisted on this policy during sixty-seven governments formed after the coup and Kurdish question still keeps its place on the agenda as the most fundamental democracy and human rights issue of this country.
AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, which prides to be against the 12 September coup d’etat, has made only partial constitutional amendments and limited the reckoning with the coup d’etats to a perfunctory trial of 12 September. In this show trial that overlooked the crimes against humanity, perpetrators of the killings under torture were not brought to account; it was not event sought justice for those who were disappeared under custody, namely Cemil Kırbayır, Mahmut Kaya, Hüseyin Morsümbül, Nurettin Öztürk, Zeki Altunbaş, Hayrettin Eren, Nurettin Yedigöl, Süleyman Cihan, Mustafa Hayrullahoğlu, Maksut Tepeli and for those whose bodies were disappeared after the execution of capital punishment, namely İlyas Has and Veysel Güney. The nightmare of the 90s created by the 12 September mindset and the disappearance of Kenan Bilgin on 12 September 1994 were not linked to the coup.
The political power has done all this and more: the State of Emergency, which was introduced after the “coup attempt of July 15” and lasted for two years; the amendment of the Constitution on 16 April 2017; the Omnibus Law No. 7145, which came into force on 31 July 2018 and provided for the maintenance of the state of emergency powers; the banning of the Saturday Mothers’ meetings in Galatasaray from 25 August 2018; the Watchman Law, the Law on Multiple Bar Associations, the Law on the Censorship of Social Media, which came into force in 2020, and other legal provisions that deepen inequality in the enforcement of punishment and pave the way for torture and impose restrictions on civil society organisations; withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention on 20 March 2021; failure to comply with the rulings of national and international judicial bodies and bans on rights and freedoms, further reinforced the impact of the September 12 coup d’état. With the adoption of the law enforced on 18 July 2021 which extended the government’s state of emergency powers for 3 years, the regime showed that it went beyond the state of emergency conditions and acted with the aim of restructuring the regime in an authoritarian manner.
In Turkey, which is rapidly becoming an authoritarian state, there have been many incidents that have jeopardised the security of the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2023 and the local elections in 2024; democratic electoral activities have been prevented; the prohibition of torture, the right to assembly and demonstration, freedom of expression, the right to liberty and security of the person and freedom of movement have been directly restricted, thus moving away from democracy and human rights. Rights and freedoms have been made useless by unlawful interventions and arbitrary bans, and despite two decisions of the Constitutional Court in February 2023, in which the Constitutional Court insisted that the weekly meetings of the Saturday Mothers in Galatasaray were lawful and legitimate in the context of the right to assembly and demonstration, these decisions were not implemented. Unlawfulness was established through police violence and prohibitions issued by district governorates, and the constitutional right of assembly and demonstration was violated. The judgements of the Constitutional Court in the case of Can Atalay, which ordered his release, and the judgements of the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered the immediate release of Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtaş, have not been implemented and the binding nature of legal norms, including the Constitution and other laws, has been ignored.
New regulations have been made in violation of the Constitution and international human rights conventions and ignoring rights and freedoms, mechanisms to stop and supervise the political power against the violation of rights and freedoms have been completely eliminated, people have been deprived of legal security and violations, arbitrariness / illegality have been extended to the field of justice and labour struggle, ecological struggle, LGBTI+ people and women.
This year, as last year, we are referring to the structuring of a permanent authoritarian regime through all these developments. We remind once again; what needs to be done to prevent coups is clear; close down the coup institutions, abolish the laws that cause violations of rights with all their consequences, punish the coup plotters and the crimes committed during the coup process, ensure restorative justice including the reparation of damages caused by the coup, expand rights and freedoms in universal measures and free them from oppression, make a new and democratic constitution based on freedoms, ensure and institutionalise conflict resolution and positive peace as well as democratisation.
Despite its insistence on authoritarianism, we call on the government, which does not give up saying that it is against coups, to prove that it is against September 12 and coups.
Neither military nor political tutelage;
Human Rights, Democracy, Peace Now!
Human Rights Association