POLICE INTERVENTION TO STUDENTS IN ISTANBUL COULD AMOUNT TO TORTURE

It is not possible to evaluate the law-enforcement officials’ intervention to the student groups who attempted to protest the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who met with university rectors in Istanbul Province on 4 December 2010 as “excessive use of force”. Such practices of the law-enforcement officials against the persons who deprived of their liberty could amount to torture according to the clear definition in The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

According to the clear definition in The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the intervention on 4 December 2010 is torture.

We would like to remind that as it is understood from the applications to our organisations, instead of the “there is no more torture in Turkey” discourse of the government the recent incident in Istanbul Province is not the first one in respect to the interventions to demonstrations. Two people were killed and 69 people were wounded in the interventions in 2010 in which several people, regardless to their ages, from students to deputies (the last example is Sevahir Bayındır, a deputy of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) who was wounded in a demonstration in Silopi District of Şırnak Province on 2 June 2010 and whose medical treatment is still going on) were aggrieved.

The thing which makes the situation even graver is the defence of the intervention by the Vice Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek and the spokesperson of the ruling party Hüseyin Çelik. The discourse referred by the authorities implies that political power is responsible from the incident and such practices will go on.

Investigations should be launched against all responsible persons; Istanbul Security Director Hüseyin Çapkın should be suspended from office and Minister of Interior Affairs who is politically responsible from the incident should undertake what is necessary to be done, as it is suggested in the report of United Nations Committee againt Torture dated 19 November 2010 (http://www2.ohchr.org/tbru/cat/CAT-C-TUR-CO-3.pdf, p. 3).

The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) began to give medical treatment of the students who were subjected to the intervention and both of our organisations undertook the judicial support of them. HRFT and Human Rights Association will make official complaints against the perpetrators. Judicial proceedings should be launched against the responsible persons as in the case against G. Ö., the Director of the Riot Police Branch of Istanbul Province which was launched on charges of “torture”.