The IHD held a meeting in Gümüldür in İzmir with the participations of the Board Members and Chairpersons of the Branches on 25-26-27 June 2010. At the end of meeting, the IHD accepted the following final declaration.
As the Kurdish question remains still the most important problem in the country, recommencement of armed conflicts is evaluated as serious and ominous development. Again, we state that solving this problem in a peaceful and democratic way becomes obligatory. One of the main reasons of the fact that the problem never reached to solution process is that although the state recognized the Kurdish question legally in 2009, it did not make any further steps for solving the problem. There are several reasons that we shall claim for the blockage of the process and we reach to this point: they did not analyze local election results in 2009 in political terms, the penal legislation is full of prohibitions and limitations in terms of working politically especially about freedom of expression, the state did not declare its road way about the Kurdish Initiative policy, they could not establish matter of ‘addressee’ on the right base; they did not legislate any laws related to human right and establishment of human rights institutions which were mentioned at the initiative process; they did not permanently solve problems of children who are in conflict with the law; they did not abolish the special competent and incumbent courts which are continuation of the State Security Courts (DGM); heavy violation of rights occurred in prisons; arrestments of members of Peace Group in illegal ways; they turned their blind eyes to subjects related to the Kurdish Initiative in the Change Proposal for the Constitution, etc.
For twenty years, the IHD have claimed that the Kurdish question cannot be solved violently, an approach based on human rights must be followed, the international covenants under the UN and CE must be recognized as guidelines in terms of solving this problem and all guns must be silent in all conscience in order to solve this problem. The IHD has approved the state policy related to the Kurdish Initiative in terms of solving the Kurdish Question for one year. Yet, lack of political will of the state must be ironed out about taking necessary steps immediately. The state obstructed the process by being content with just decisions of the State Security Council in old-school way, rather than realizing views and proposals taken from civil and democratic institutions such us when the state conducted a meeting with CSOs related to this matter. By observing its practices for last 30 years, it is obvious that the results of the state’s persistency policies have heavy effects on peoples living in Turkey. The IHD diagnosed to put the change of the Constitution in state agenda for solving the Kurdish question through reviewing its approach.
We shall continue our work increasingly for bringing crimes committed against peoples and opposite parts to daylight, bringing responsible people to the trials, liquidating gangs within the state and making efforts in involving into this process. Turkey needs to enter into a confrontation process. In this context, we stated to continue the works of the Truth and Justice Initiative that we led to establish. Regarding path to peace is passing by the justice, works of the Coalition for the International Penal Courts will be conducted in an efficient way in order to make justice being effective in international arena and to make Turkey being party to the Roma Statute which established the International Penal Court.
It is obvious that Turkey needs a new and democratic constitution. In the frame that we shared our opinion during the proposal for amendment of the Constitution, we have repeated by emphasizing on the need for establishment of a new and democratic constitution and on making efforts for strengthening movement of civil constitution.
The IHD diagnosed to exhibit pressure policies using legal ways against human rights defenders, to show this policy’s increasingly oppressive character towards social opposition and intellectuals, journalists, trade unionists, politicians and chosen people and for the penal legislation to have content guaranteeing freedoms as a whole. The IHD shall conduct several works for arrested human rights defenders (especially Muharrem Erbey who is Vice-President of the IHD) in order to get enough support from the public to follow the trials collectively.
The IHD shall continue works about exhibition of the countries which implement the death penalty in our region, combating actively for abolishment of this penalty and releasing people who were arrested for political reasons.
We shall prepare and conduct human rights education programs in order to carry out more effective struggle to be used, to be protected and to be developed. We shall open the Human Rights Academy of the IHD in order to contribute to the Human Rights Movement of Turkey on scientific base.
In the light of all evaluation that we made so far, the IHD has decided to work on following subjects in next term:
1. We shall call to stop guns for peaceful and democratic solution for the Kurdish question by establishing an atmosphere without any combats.
2. We shall call the state for briefing to civil and democratic society regarding having right to have more information about the process in order to play more roles of the civil and democratic society in the Kurdish question.
3. We shall make several actions and activities for establishment of permanent peace atmosphere in the country on 1st September 2010 at the Day of Peace.
4. We shall continue on several works about deaths caused by conflicts within the Kurdish questions: making efforts for opening mass graves in legal and ethical ways, making trials of unknown assaults reopened and bringing responsible people of these assaults before the law, finding aftermaths of the lost people and bringing the responsible people for them before the law. In this topic, we shall continue our efforts for Turkey to conduct international responsibilities in practice. In this context, we shall continue on our sit-in acts called ‘Find Lost People, Judge Perpetrators’. We shall conduct several works compatible with final declaration of the Peace Meeting made in Ankara on 19-20 June 2010 by the Truth and Justice Initiative.
5. We shall make a special work about suspicious suicides of military soldiers and police officers.
6. We shall follow violations of rights especially occurred in prisons. Especially we shall bring situations of heavily sick prisoners into public opinion regularly. We shall make works for releasing them.
7. We shall combat against the pressure policy by using legal ways towards firstly human rights defenders, intellectuals, journalists, politicians, chosen people, trade unionist and social opposition parts. In this context, we shall do campaign called ‘Freedom to Everyone and Every Parts’.
In this campaign:
a. We shall make several works for Turkey to implement the UN Declaration of the Human Rights Defenders.
b. We shall want to change the penal legislation and write a special report about it.
c. We shall conduct several works to abolish the Special Heavy Penalty Court which are continuation of the State Security Courts (DGM) and have no constitutional base.
d. We shall make several works to eliminate heavy arrestment regime.
e. We shall conduct several works to customize the Juvenile Criminal Law in accordance with the legislations.
8. We shall provide to take necessary measures with public opinion by making activities and actions against rape, abuses and especially violence against women and children.
9. We shall open the Human Rights Academy of the IHD on 17 July 2010.
HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION