We Can Achieve Peace by Defending the Right to Peace!
1 September 2021
We would like to reiterate that we want to live in a world ruled by peace on the occasion of September 1 marking the World Peace Day in Turkey. The right to peace is a human right.
The United Nations was founded by the UN Charter that was adopted and proclaimed in 1945. The Preamble and Chapter I of the Charter underline that the purpose of the United Nations is to promote respect for peace and human rights and freedoms. The opening article and Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was drafted by the UN Human Rights Commission and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, emphasize the requirement that peace, and the international and national social orders upon which peace shall be founded need to be based on the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration. The UN General Assembly approved and proclaimed the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace[1] by resolution 39/11 of 12 November 1984. The declaration stresses the sacred right to peace and the fact that to ensure the preservation and implementation of this right constitutes a fundamental obligation of each state.
UN General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Declaration on the Right to Peace on 19 December 2016, while UN Human Rights Council recalled that the member states should promote the right to peace in its resolution of 22 June 2017.
The demand for peace not only is associated with civil and political rights (the right to life, prohibition of torture, the right to freedom and security of the person, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of association, etc.) but also involves economic, social, and cultural rights (right to work, right to housing, right to health, right to education, linguistic rights). The fundamental approach that İHD also adopts and shares in these texts is that peace is dependent on human rights and freedoms. All kinds of inequality among people, denial of rights and freedoms are the primary causes of wars and conflicts. İHD, therefore, believes that peace can be achieved based on rights and freedoms under all circumstances and all around the world.
Turkey has a pluralistic ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural fabric. Pluralism finds its expression in the motto “Everyone is different, everyone is equal” underlined and reflected by İHD time and again. Pluralism is, at the same time, the foundation of democracy. İHD is of the opinion that there is an inseverable bond between democracy and human rights. İHD, thus, has been underlining that the main problem in Turkey is a human rights and democracy problem while identifying the most significant component of this main problem as the Kurdish issue.
Turkey needs a novel peace and conflict resolution process in order to solve its human rights and democracy problem.
Turkey is a country that failed to solve its main problems like the Kurdish issue by utilizing conflict resolution methods based on dialogue and negotiation. Thus armed conflict continues both at home and abroad.
Data collected by İHD reveals a quite severe state of affairs brought about by the impasse in the Kurdish issue and the restart of armed conflict that claimed the lives of many people between 2015 and 2020. According to İHD’s data, 90 civilians were killed while 302 were wounded, 1,322 soldiers/police officers/village guards were killed while 2,702 were wounded, 2,599 armed militants were killed while 194 were wounded in the conflict zone due to armed conflict. In addition, 1,055 civilians were killed while 1,255 were wounded in summary executions and 184 people were killed while 1,258 were wounded in attacks. 523 people were killed while 2,786 were wounded in illegal organization attacks. The total number of people who were killed was 5,773 while the total number of the wounded was 8,497. These figures do not include those killed in armed conflict in Syria and Iraq (except 2020) and in cross-border military operations. Even the figures released by the Minister of National Defense lay bare how alarming the situation is. These figures point to a mid-sized war.
Conflict and war along with the overall climate of oppression made it inevitable for violence to come forward and bring along poisonous hate speech. The failure to prevent femicide, increase in the number of rape cases and harassment against women can also be explained by this climate of violence. There is also an upward trend in the number of racist attacks that are motivated by hate.
Economy, too, has sustained heavy losses because of this process. One can argue that the country has been in a state of permanent economic crisis.
A constant state of oppression has been produced by the regime change and an authoritarian understanding of governance rooted in this process. An immigrant/asylum-seeker/refugee problem has been created involving millions of people due to the Middle East policy developed on anti-Kurdish sentiments. The number of hate speech and hate crime cases against refugees has also been on the rise.
Peace can eliminate all these problems. Authorities must give up denying the Kurdish issue and recognize that it exists. Parties to the conflict must assume responsibility for a permanent de-conflict. Isolation imposed on Abdullah Öcalan and other prisoners held in İmralı Prison must be lifted and they must be allowed to see their families and lawyers. All political prisoners must be released. All kinds of oppression over political and social dissidence must be ended; obstacles before the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly must be lifted. Then, parties to the problem must establish dialogue and discuss. What kind of a peace do we want? What kind of a solution do we want? Then they must find ways to reconcile through negotiations. Political and social groups must be allowed to take part in these processes. Legal guarantees must be granted for these processes and finally constitutional and legal solutions must be found through a settlement.
We believe that the way for a novel peace process will absolutely be paved for if the political parties and social dissidence of Turkey focus on peace. We, as human rights defenders, know that the path to peace in Turkey will be cleared through the fight for the right to peace.
İHD will continue to work hard for the right to peace for a life ruled by peace in our country and the world.
Human Rights Association
[1] https://ihd.org.tr/en/un-on-the-right-to-peace-and-right-of-peoples-to-peace/