Democratic reforms in Turkey have started after the EU process. Turkey has been officially recognised as a candidate country to become a member of EU at the Helsinki European Council of December 1999. This recognition marked the beginning of a reform process in Turkey in the context of democracy and human rights. The European Council concluded that Turkey sufficiently fulfils the Copenhagen political criteria to open accession negotiations in December of 2004. Negotiations started on 3 October 2005 when the Council adopted a Negotiating Framework.
There are many on going problems in terms of democracy and human rights in Turkey despite the process of democratisation started for purposes of harmonisation with the EU’s Copenhagen political criteria.
There is a considerable difference between the period 1999 and 2004 and the period extending from the late 2004 or early 2005 up to present day.
Between 1999 to 2004 the governments (a three party coalition government and the current government or AKP) had some partial political will for fulfilment of Copenhagen political criteria which became mandatory upon Turkey’s candidature for full EU membership, though they had also some reluctance, impasse or backtrack. Consequently there were some constitutional and legislative amendments in line with this commitment. Most of these were significant amendments also welcomed and positive by the human rights movement in Turkey.
During this period, 8 harmonisation packages were introduced. These harmonization packages include amendments in
Turkish Penal Code,
Law on Ban and Pursue Smuggling,
Law on Forests,
Military Penal Code,
Law on Fight Against Terrorism,
Criminal Procedures Law,
Administrative Trial Procedures Law,
Law on the Establishment & Trial Procedures of State Security Courts,
Press Law,
Law on the Establishment and Broadcasting of Radio and Televisions,
Association Law,
Law on Demonstrations and Meetings,
Law No:657 on Civil Servants,
Law on Provincial Administration,
Law on Duties and Rights of the Police,
Political Parties Law,
Law on Education and Teaching of Foreign Languages,
Law on Directorate-General for Foundations and
the Foundations Law.
Some of these amendments have significance as they are important and basic elements for a democratic society. For example; abolition of the death penalty in peace times, expanding the freedom of association, teaching in private courses and broadcasting on languages spoken in Turkey other than Turkish, abolition of the phrases “legally banned languages” existed in some laws, restriction of custody periods to four days and enabling foundations to own property and providing the opportunity for renewal of the trial after the decision of the European Court of Human Rights can be counted as significant amendments.
During this reform process, Turkish State has signed a series of international instruments, which had been declined to sign by the State previously, in the field of human rights and it ratified as well a number of others. Provisions have been made to incorporate in national legislation those binding international instruments that have been signed pursuant to Article 90 of the Constitution as amended. However, in the matter of Turkey’s fulfilling its obligations under the mentioned international instruments thus signed; problems are being experienced in both legislative and implementation aspects. Especially the responsibilities pertaining to mechanisms for monitoring under International and Regional instruments for human rights are not being fully carried out.
I should point out here that the main problem for human rights organisations was poor implementation of constitutional and legislative amendments rather than the absence of relevant legislation. Another important reason for the improvements in this period was that there was a unilateral ceasefire by Kurdistan Worker’s Party or PKK from 1999 to 2004. The ceasefire provided an atmosphere for the process of normalisation and boosted hopes of peace. So I can say that, people had an optimistic opinion about Turkey’s future in terms of human rights and democracy in this period.
Constitutional and legislative amendments given effect and new legislation, which were passed until the Brussels Summit at the end of 2004, were significant arrangements having their positive effects on democracy and human rights. However, all these reforms and amendments were not successful enough to bring about structural changes in the State.
Towards the end of 2004, the positive conditions which had provided an atmosphere for normalisation and laid a suitable ground to democratisation and improvements in human rights started to turn into negative in some respects. Politicians started to make new arrangements in a rather business as usual mentality, limited only to the objective of giving at least some response to the requirements of the EU. When the unilateral ceasefire declared by the PKK in 1999 ended in June 2004, armed clashes restarted. The re-emergence of armed clashes caused to the re-strengthening of discourse on “fight against terrorism”. A new Anti-Terror Law, which is stricter, has been adopted in June 2006.
Between 2005 and 2007, a few significant progresses were made in democratisation and improvement in human rights situation. Developments during this period can be summarised below.
Observance of international human rights law
The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on the abolishment of the death penalty was ratified in March 2006.
Protocol No 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights, on the abolishment of the death penalty at all times was ratified in February 2006.
Protocol No 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, amending the control system of the Convention entered into force in May 2006.
The UN Convention against corruption entered into force in June 2006.
Turkey ratified the revised European Social Charter on 27 September 2006.
The European Social Charter was accepted with reservations on Article 5 (right to organise) and Article 6 (right to bargain collectively) as well as on paragraph 3 of Article 2 (minimum annual holidays) and paragraph 1 of Article 4 (remuneration and decent standard of living).
Turkey has lifted previous reservations on the European Social Charter’s provisions, namely the right of children and young persons to protection and the right of disabled persons.
Protocol No 12 on the general prohibition of discrimination by public authorities, signed in 2001 but not ratified.
The First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), signed in 2004, but not ratified.
The Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT), signed in September 2005, but not ratified
Turkey signed the new UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, but not ratified yet.
SITUATIONS OF SOME HUMAN RIGHTS CATEGORIES IN TURKEY:
1. Freedom of Expression: Freedom of Expression is one the most important human rights problems as there are many people who face difficulties within this scope. Freedom of expression is threatened not only by means of laws but also practices by officers. Police, prosecutors, judges threat freedom of expression through their acts and process (investigations and making decisions, which are contrary to human rights standards, in court cases). Therefore, it is not possible to say that right of freedom of expression is protected by state of law.
Freedom of expression is associated with only the Article 301 in Turkey.
Article 301, Turkish Penal Code
1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.
2. Public denigration of the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security structures shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third
4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.
Another serious article is;
Article 220, Turkish Penal Code: The article describes the offense of “forming an organization with the purpose of committing a crime” and the penalties to be prescribed for it.
Paragraph 7. Persons who knowingly and willingly help an organization shall be punished as members of the organization even if they are not part of the hierarchical structure of the organization.
Paragraph 8. Persons who wage propaganda for the organization or its goals shall be punished with prisons terms of one to three years. In the event this offense is committed through the press or broadcast media the penalty shall be increased by half.
There are at least 14 articles, rather than one, that threat right of freedom of expression in the Turkish Penal Code. These articles can be listed as; 1) the Article 84. encouraging and assisting for suicide, 2) the Article 125. undermining honour, dignity or respectability, insult against public officer, 3) the Article 132. violation of privacy of communication, 4) the Article 134. secrecy of private life, 5) the Article 215. praising crime and offender, 6) the Article 216. inciting people to hatred and enmity, 7) the Article 218. offences, which committed through media, against public peace, 8) the Article 285. violation of secrecy of investigation, 9) the Article 286. record of voice and video in the investigation and prosecution process, 10) the Article 288. attempting to affect fair trial, 11) the Article 299. insult against the president, 12) the Article 301. insulting being a Turk, the Republic, the organs and institutions of the State, 13) the Article 305. gaining interest in order to carry out an activity against fundamental national interests, and 14) the Article 318 Discouraging people from performing military service.
We can add also the following articles to the abovementioned decisions. 217. (Incitement to disobey the law), 220. (Establishing organisations for the purpose of committing actions that are regarded as crime in the law), 222. (actions that are contrary to law on Hat and Turkish Characters), 226. (Obscenity), 257. (malfeasance), 267. (aspersion), 273. (wrong attesting), 283. (favouring offender), 285. (violation of secrecy of investigation) and considering implementations even 314. (offense of establishing armed organization) can be added to the list.
Actually, as it is in the past, there are articles that have symbolic meaning. The Article 301 is also the one, which has such a meaning.
If the problem of freedom of expression occurred due to normative regulations, its solution would become easier. But the problem is related with practice. Therefore the mentality should be changed. According to a recent research, which has been conducted by Mr. Mithat Sancar a law professor for TESEV a think tank; more than half of judges and prosecutors state that when there is case State versus citizen, they will be in side of the State. This shows that they are not objective. As you can imagine parties in most of the cases, related with freedom of expression, are the State and citizen.
It is an engrossing situation. According to supranational human rights instruments; the main force, which protects human rights, is power of law and particularly power of judiciary. However, the practice is not like that in Turkey. The Judiciary interprets, practises exception decisions as main decisions rather than freedom idea/principle. The Judiciary makes prominent its interpretation manner despite convictions by European Court of Human Rights and the Article 90 of the Constitution. Although legislation body makes a regulation towards a legal improvement, the Judiciary does not interpret or practise in manner of freedom.
2. Torture: IHD says that torture is practiced systematically in Turkey. Systematic torture includes the following components; a) being common, b) being perpetual, c) being deliberate. “Zero tolerance for torture” has become just an utterance. Thousands people have been subjected to torture for many years. However, there is no, even just 1, public officer that arrested for practising torture.
In the past five years, changes to laws and procedures have significantly reduced (torture events has been decreasing in official records, but systematic torture is still going on in Turkey.
The most important changes were improvements to medical checks, shortening of pre-trial detention periods and, in 2003, and recognition of the right of immediate access to legal counsel for all detainees. It is well-established that access to legal counsel is the single most effective safeguard against abuse in custody. This last step significantly raised the standard of formal procedural and legal protections against torture in Turkey. Its formal protections are now among the strongest in Europe.
Torture and other ill-treatment persist in Turkey because in some detention facilities police and gendarmerie (soldiers who control rural areas) ignore the new safeguards. Certain police units deny or delay detainees’ access to a lawyer, fail to inform families that their relatives have been detained, and attempt to suppress or influence medical reports which record ill-treatment. The special protections for child detainees are still not reliably applied by the police.
The following data produced by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey gives a general idea about situation torture reality in Turkey. According to the data which does not reflect the whole situation of torture reality;
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· In total 10.786 people have applied to Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV) because of torture and ill-treatment. All of them have been treated. · During the 2006, 337 people have applied to TIHV. 222 people of them were subjected to torture. During first 5 months of the 2007, 238 people have applied to the Foundation and 152 of them were subjected to torture. · According to Human Rights Association’s (IHD) data; · In the 2006, 708 people were subjected to torture. · In the June of 2007, 2 people lost their life while they were under detention in Çanakkale (Province in Marmara Region), İzmir (Province in Aegean Region) and 1 person died in the prison just after two days in Istanbul. |
There has been a clear increase in direct, spread and systematic violence, which is practiced without taking into custody by security forces in demonstrations, in recent years. Increase in this type of violence continued also during the 5 months of the 2005. Using disproportionate force and violence, in peaceful demonstrations, has reached its peak in the 1st May in Istanbul. Torture samples in “kidnappings”, which seem well planned, are seen in 2007 as in the past years. Since authorities do not accept such events, it is impossible to investigate against torture allegations and punish torturers. Allegations related with torture and ill-treatments to arrested, sentenced people continue in the 2007. Especially, isolation implementations in F Type prisons still continue in a serious way. At the end the January 2007, still there was not any positive improvements about amendments, which had been promised, of F Type prisons.
One of the most important problems is that law-enforcement forces do not implement detention procedure in a manner, which complies with its rules. In Turkey, practice; officers do not inform, adequately, detained people about rights. Officers do not let people to use their rights or postpone until end of taking deposition. Rule about calling relatives immediately cannot be implemented in practice. By arguing that detained person does not want to meet without showing any other proof, meeting with lawyer is prevented or they meet in an inappropriate atmosphere.
Custom of conducting preparation investigation, by law-enforcement forces against torture allegations still continues. During investigation period, law-enforcement forces do not implement required process and collect proofs. Public prosecutors do not implement process, with considering torture allegations or proofs in file, but require a written application. When courts come across torture allegations or findings in trial process, they are insensible. Moreover, courts do not need to make complaint about torture to public prosecutors. All of these points cause to impunity of torture. Legal aid to law-enforcement forces members, who are judged because they practice torture, has an incentive role to impunity. Moreover, this legal aid has been expanded as accused security forces members can choose their lawyer.
Another reason for impunity of torture perpetrators is that trials, which takes too long time. Judicial institutions do not fulfil their responsibility to be fair in implementation and interpreting of the legislation. Moreover; public officers’ punishments of administrative investigation and discipline punishment, which resulted from torture or ill-treatment, have been deleted completely in accordance with numbered 5525 Law about amnesty of register, which passed in the 2006. Medical reports, to determine and document torture might still be incomplete or wrong, are another fact of impunity. In proving allegations of torture psychological findings have also equal importance as much as physical findings have. Unfortunately medical personnel, who give report, do not have adequate training and experience about forensic medicine techniques that provide ability of determining physical and psychological signs of torture. Also medical personnel, who are in charge of examining person during and after their detention period or while detained is being taken into prison work as officers of Ministry of Interior Affairs or Justice. Status of medical personnel is a serious obstacle, without subjecting any other pressures, to make objective and scientific evaluations. Not being autonomous and independent has a harmful role for reliability of the institution. Especially investigations against public officers, like torture allegations, documentation of the crime becomes difficult. Doctors, who are in charge of documentation of torture, might be subject to pressure even threatens by administration as well as law-enforcement forces. Such a situation causes problems in documenting finds in other words impunity of perpetrators.
3. Right of Personal Liberty and Security and Right of Fair Trial: Changes in Anti Terror Law and Law on the Duties and Competencies of Police (PVSK) have caused backwards in personal liberty and security also in right of fair trial. People are forced to consent to detaining arbitrarily, showing identity in every place without explaining any reason and obeying personal search. Moreover, new limitations have been started to implement about this issue. These limitations are; blocking access to lawyer right of people that detained due to political reasons, limiting looking at files and getting a copy of files of these people. A new implementation, which is staying in prison without appearing in court for month and too long period between two trials, has been started to be practised. Trials are carried out depending on statements which taken under detention and declared as not production of free will.
Approach of supporting state ideology by the judiciary in court cases about political opponents and freedom of expression has shown that impartiality of judiciary is also a problem as much as structural independency of it.
4. Prisons: No positive changes in practice in the isolation conditions and its implementations in F type prisons have been accomplished. A circular, numbered 45/1[1], by the Ministry of Justice has not been implemented because of arbitrary attitudes of administrators in prisoners. The circular, which is an important step to abolish isolation, has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice to provide an opportunity for gathering a determined arrested and sentenced people. Lack of personnel has been showed as reason for this failure. Limitations on letters by arrested and sentenced people are going on. There are problems in providing satisfactory health service. Still, there are applications about practice of torture and ill-treatment. Torture and degrading treatments are practised in areas, which cannot be monitored by cameras. Civil control of prisons could not be performed. Monitoring Council of Prisons do not have a characteristic of civil control mechanism. Execution judges institution acts as legitimizing actions and processes by administration, which behave contrary to human rights, rather than protecting rights of arrested and sentenced people. Decisions are made, without any investigation, according to records by administration.
5. Freedom of meeting and demonstration: It is known that security forces intervene to the peaceful demonstrations, which are held within the framework of seeking right, and use excessive force. There is no positive change in this attitude of security forces members. There is no standard, for this issue, in all over the country. In recent times; racist, nationalist aggressive groups have used their “rights of demonstration”, with accompany of police, under the name of reaction to terrorism. DTP (Democratic Society Party) buildings, also building of other political parties and associations were attacked. Police forces have not started any process against perpetrators though there were hundreds attacks in the late 2007 and early 2008. Even those, who attacked to DTP Headquarters, were not arrested except for one event. People, who carried out such attacks, identified themselves as Turkish Nationalists. Their attacks were declared as “nationalist reflex” by public officials. These people were protected by state institutions and also judiciary. Attitude of the state institutions and judiciary, before and after the murder of Hrant Dink, is not a mono-attitude but it is a general approach towards minorities and opponents of regime. Statement, by the Chief of Staff, about racist, chauvinist attacks shows the level of lacking security for human rights and freedoms of citizens. In this statement the Chief of Staff says that “they are stepping on brake”. This statement shows also human rights and freedoms are open to arbitrary process and actions. Moreover, the statement shows the quality of regime (in terms of primary of civil authority, primary of rule of law and democracy principles) in Turkey.
6. Principle of Secularism and religious freedoms:
a) Existence of Religious Affairs Institution (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) in the Constitutional System
b) Compulsory religious courses in the schools
c) Compulsory rule/prohibitions for clothes in universities even private courses
are ongoing problems.
Attacks against those, who are member of other religious except for Islam, have continued. Activities by members of other religions are considered as threat against security of the country. Building, repairing church, getting back properties that had been taken in the past are still problems.
Cemevi, which is considered as sacred place for Alevi community, is considered as culture places rather than sacred places.
7. Women Rights: In Turkey, legal protection for women has been strengthened due to lobbying and campaigning by women’s rights activists. Starting from the Constitution, the Civil Code and the Turkish Penal Code have been amended in favour of women rights.
Although Turkey is a party to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, it cannot be argued that Turkey complies with provisions of the Convention. One of the outstanding problems is the violence against women and honour killings. Despite the provisions in the new Penal Code that lists moral killings as an aggravated circumstance for murder crimes, the sentences issued by courts reflect a mixed picture. While in some cases courts imposed maximum sentences (life imprisonment), in others they opted for lighter sentences, especially if a minor had committed the murder. A circular by the Prime Minister’s Office in July follows up on these, by giving priority to the fight against violence, listing the activities to be undertaken and naming the state bodies responsible. The Directorate General for the Status of Women is given the task of overall co-ordination of activities. In 2006, the report of the ad hoc Parliamentary Committee on “crimes in the name of honour, violence against women and children” has been finalised. The report puts forward practical recommendations. Although the legal framework is satisfactory, the implementation of the law especially by the judiciary and the security forces are rather far from preventive.
There is still a need to further increase the provision of shelters for women subjected to domestic violence. Opening up Shelter Houses was delegated to Municipalities of which revenues are limited. There are about 30 shelter houses in Turkey.
The participation of women in political life is still very limited although Turkey is one of the countries recognised the right to election and to be elected in 1920s.
8. Children Rights: The Convention on Children Rights by UN has been adopted in 1989. Turkey has not repealed its reservations on the Articles 17. 29. 30 in the Convention. Children are subjected to human right violations in the following categories; suicide, domestic violence, subjecting harassment and rape, and forced prostitution. Also, forcing to live or work in street. The Turkish Labour Law prohibits the employment of children under the age of 15. However, there is no properly functioning inspection mechanism to prevent the child labour. Losing their lives, legs, hands due to landmines are also serious problems for children. The right to education for children, particularly girls, remains a problem in some areas.
9. Rights of disabled people: A Law on People with Disabilities was entered into force in 2005. The Law prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. However the Law does not provide any definition what the discrimination against disabled people is and the prohibition areas exclusively.
10. The problem of protecting of human rights defenders: The Declaration on protection of human rights by UN focuses on making activities by human rights defender easy and protecting them for their activities. There are court cases against IHD (Human Rights Association) members and administrators and branches. 5 of our administrators (some of them are our former administrators) are in prison now for their human rights activities. There is a court case against our Mersin Branch to close down it. The Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal has announced his opinion about IHD, in his indictment about closing down DTP. The public prosecutor, in his indictment, argues that “IHD is under the control of PKK”. The scandalous assessment is an example for violation of the principle of rule of law by some officers that work in the high judiciary institutions. IHD is not a side in the court case. There is not a casual connection between the reasons for demanding the closing down the party and resign of one of the founder of IHD. IHD is a volunteer NGO. Being interesting point of the resign, one of our members, for the Chief Public Prosecutor in the Court of Appeal is specific situation for Turkey. This accusation by the Chief Public Prosecutor shows the level of threat/pressure to which IHD subjected. It is interesting because the investigation it is not against IHD.
11. Southeast (Kurdish Question):
a) There are limitations about learning mother tongue and education in the Article 42 of the Constitution. There are prohibitions for using any other language except for Turkish in the Article 58 of Law on Main Decisions of Elections and Voters Roll Numbered 298 as well as the Article 81 of Law on Political Parties. Court cases were opened against administrators of HAK-PAR (Right and Freedoms Party) and DTP (Democratic Society Party) for propaganda in Kurdish. Decisions, which provide opportunity using Kurdish, by local administrations (Municipalities), were blocked by judiciary. There are many, many court cases against Kurdish local administrators. Mr. Abdullah Demirbaş, who is the Mayor of Sur Municipality in Diyarbakır) has been dismissed from his position just because he decided to provide public services also in other languages plus to Turkish. The mayor made this decision with the assembly of the municipality after the survey on the spoken languages within the border of the municipality.
b) A satisfactory improvement, about IDPs, has not been accomplished. There was statement by the Minister of Interior Affairs in the Yeni Şafak Newspaper dated 19th November 2007. According to the statement 150 thousand people have returned to their villages. 243 thousand people, in 11 provinces, have applied to the Compensations Commissions for being harmed from terrorism. 86 thousand of these applications have been concluded. According to IHD estimations over 3860 villages and fields were evacuated and there are about 3 million IDPs in Turkey. According to official records (by 1996) there are about 378 thousand people and 3428 villages and fields were evacuated.
c) Problems of TV broadcasting in any other language except for Turkish and using the letters of “q, x and w” in correspondences are going on.
CASE STUDY: SITUATION OF KURDISH PEOPLE
At first, I should repeat that there are 26 different ethnic groups in Turkey. I chose Kurdish people for some reasons;
- I am a Kurd,
- There are more materials about Kurds in terms of violations against minority rights.
There is no political reason in choosing Kurds for the case study. Actually, you can apply all of these violations against Kurds to other people in Turkey.
There are at least 15 million Kurdish people in Turkey. They live mainly in the South East Region of Turkey. They live in every part of the Turkey, too. They moved to other cities because of problems that they face in the region. For example, there are about 4 million Kurds in Istanbul. There are cities like Adana and Mersin which have high Kurdish population. There are some areas like ghetto in which only Kurds live. Their language is Kurdish. They deal with mostly agriculture and animals. I can say Kurdish society is an agrarian one. They are poor as the Region has low development standards.
There are negligence of Southeast region, in terms of economic and social rights, and the problem of unfair distribution of income among regions. For example; 47 percent of the population in Van (a province in the region) benefit from green card service (type of social security for poor people that do not have any social security). It is also description of unemployment, poverty and lack of social security. There is no plan by the Government for the East and Southeast regions. Indeed Kurdish question is the one, which has economic and social aspects as well as political and legal aspects. There is a necessity for plans and programmes, which are applicable, comprehensive and based on participatory preparation, and also programmes/plans of democracy, human rights, development and improvement programmes. Such an approach has also meaning of peaceful solution for the question.
Violations against Kurds started just after the foundation of the Republic or 1923. There were some Kurdish rebels (Şeyh Said rebel in Dersim a city in the region) against authorities and all of these rebels were stopped by using force. Using force caused violations against Kurdish people in the region. However these violations have become known especially during 1990s when there was an intense armed conflict between PKK and Turkish army. It is said that about 40.000 people have died in these armed clashes. Both armed clashes between PKK and the Turkish Army and violations against Kurdish people still continue even today.
Ongoing Categories of human rights violations, which Kurds are subjected to, can be summarized as;
- Right to life which includes Extra Judicial Executions,Arbitrary Killing
- Freedom of expression (praising crime and offender)
- Freedom of association
- Right to education and radio, TV broadcast in mother tongue
- IDP (according to our record there are about 3 million Kurdish IDPs in Turkey)
- Right to travel (there are some areas which are declared as high security zone and forbidden to enter)
- Political representation (% 10 threshold in the election)
- Torture and ill-treatment
- Kidnapping
- Disappeared people under detention
- Freedom of meeting and demonstration
IHD states that Turkey’s fundamental problem is the question of human rights and democratization. One of the most important elements of this problem is the Kurdish Question. IHD refuses the view point which sees Kurdish question as a minority problem. Kurdish population in our country expresses that they see themselves as holders of equal rights with everyone in the country.
In our opinion, minority question in Turkey is related with mentality of the State. Therefore I think the following analysis will be useful to understand the existing mentality;
Political and legal systems based on the emphasis to ethnic identity in Turkey. In spite of the fact that Turkey is not formed by a human community with a single ethnic origin, citizens of the Republic of Turkey are identified as Turkish citizen based on Turkish ethnical identity. (There are about 26 different ethnics in Turkey. Some of them are; Kurds, Arab, Assyrians, Georgian, Greek, Armenian) There are descriptions in legal text like Turks, children of Turk, being Turk, honour to be Turk . Neither to citizen of the Republic of Turkey nor to citizen of the State of Republic of Turkey is referred in legal arrangements where citizenship of the Republic of Turkey is meant.
The abovementioned descriptions are not related with to the citizenship but ethnic origin. Therefore the question of citizenship perception should be answered. The following article of the Turkish Constitution gives an idea about the perception;
ARTICLE 66. (As amended on October 17, 2001)
Everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk.
The child of a Turkish father or a Turkish mother is a Turk.
Citizenship can be acquired under the conditions stipulated by law, and shall be forfeited only in cases determined by law.
No Turk shall be deprived of citizenship, unless he commits an act incompatible with loyalty to the motherland.
Recourse to the courts in appeal against the decisions and proceedings related to the deprivation of citizenship, shall not be denied.
It is understood that the legislator of the Constitution asked the question of who the Turk is. This is the reason why the title of the Article does not as “citizenship of the Republic of Turkey”. Instead the word Turkish referring to an ethnic origin is used. It is the Turk defined in the Article. Turk is the one who is bound to the Turkish State with citizenship. Therefore the State is the Turkish State. This definition explicitly shows that the citizenship is not comprehended as a legal bound but it is rather determined according to the ethnic origin. Because citizenship is understood to be citizen of the Turk and of the Turkish State. So we can say that the problem is based on mono-mentality of the State.
However, if the problem were apprehended and understood as a problem of citizenship, the heading and the content of the Article should have been formulated as follows; Citizenship of the State of the Republic of Turkey or simply Citizenship. Naturally this sort of approach would ask the question of whom the citizen of the State of the Republic of Turkey is rather than questioning of whom the Turk is or who is called as Turk. Therefore the content of Article could be arranged as below since the question aims at identifying the legal bound in real terms;
Everyone bound to the State of the Republic of Turkey (or State of Turkey or Republic of Turkey) through bound of citizenship is the citizen of the State of the Republic of Turkey (or simply State of Turkey or Republic of Turkey).
MONITORING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS AND
INTERVENTION TO THESE VIOLATIONS IN TERMS of KURDISH SITUATION
Monitoring is a process which provides an assessment about an event or violation. Monitoring process includes 3 steps;
- Collecting data (IHD uses field researches and interviews in the data collection process.)
- Documenting
- Analysis
Intervention includes 3 steps too;
- Reporting (we prepare a report based on facts of researches and interviews. IHD organizes press conferences to make these reports known. We send this report to all relevant parts (officials, press and media, other NGOs, embassies and to the international organizations if there is an English version). IHD prepares human rights violations annual reports and introduces it to the public. We put our reports to web-site.
- Defending
- Services to victims (If victim accepts, we organize press conference about violation that he/she has been subjected to. We contact with HRFT to rehabilitate victims of torture events. We guide him/her to prepare a legal complaint against those who are responsible. We compose human rights committees to search a social incident in the scene.)
The scope of the monitoring and intervention depends on two sources;
- Scanning daily newspaper (our documentation department scans 10 newspapers and about 10 web-sites of news agencies and newspapers)
- Applications to our branches, representative offices and headquarters. There are forms for applications.
Ethical Principles;
We try to act in the following manner;
In order to prepare a credible report, we interview not only with victims but also other parties (public authorities, observers). We try to involve experts in the report preparation period. We always ask victims for permission for any kind actions related with their situation. We never express names of children. We never take photos of victims unless they accept. If victim accepts, we contact with authorities to start judicial process. We provide legal aid as much as we can. We collaborate with bar association in regard to this point.
The circular states that prisoners shall meet 10 hours in a week.