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HUMAN TURKEY’S RIGHTS HUMAN RIGHTS ROLLBACK WATCH Recommendations for Reform Turkey’s Human Rights Rollback Recommendations for Reform Copyright © 2014 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-62313-1968 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all. Human Rights Watch is an international organization with staff in more than 40 countries, and offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Goma, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, Tunis, Washington DC, and Zurich. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 978-1-62313-1968 Turkey’s Human Rights Rollback Recommendations for Reform Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Human Rights and the Peace Process with the PKK .................................................................... 3 The Rule of Law......................................................................................................................... 3 Impunity ...................................................................................................................................4 Restrictions on Freedom of Expression and Assembly ............................................................... 5 What Turkey Should Do to Strengthen Respect for Human Rights ............................................... 5 Regional Context and International Implications ....................................................................... 7 Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 9 To the Government of Turkey .................................................................................................... 9 End Constitutional Restrictions on Human Rights ............................................................... 9 In Order to Support the Kurdish Peace Process, Protect Rights and Uphold the Rights of All Minority Groups ................................................................................................................ 9 Protect Freedom of Expression, Assembly, and Association .............................................. 10 Reform the Criminal Justice System .................................................................................. 10 End Impunity for Violence against Women ........................................................................ 11 Strengthen Official Human Rights Bodies in Turkey, Implement a Human Rights Action Plan .. 11 Combat Impunity of Public Officials and the Security Forces for Human Rights Abuses ...... 12 To the European Union and United States ............................................................................... 12 I. Improving Rights to Secure the Kurdish Peace Process ............................................... 13 Minority Rights ....................................................................................................................... 13 Ending Misuse of Anti-Terrorism Laws ..................................................................................... 14 II. Reforming the Criminal Justice System ....................................................................... 18 III. Tackling Impunity ..................................................................................................... 25 Accountability for Current Human Rights Abuse by State Officials ............................................ 25 Accountability for Past Abuses during the Conflict with the PKK ............................................... 27 Ending Impunity for Violence against Women .......................................................................... 30 IV. Protecting Free Expression, Association, and Assembly ............................................ 32 Government Intolerance towards Critical Speech .................................................................... 32 Government Intolerance of Public Protest ................................................................................ 36 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 38 Introduction Turkey is undergoing a worrying rollback of human rights. In office for twelve years under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan—elected president in August 2014—the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has shown increasing intolerance of political opposition, public protest, and critical media. Over the past nine months, in an effort to stifle corruption investigations, the AKP government has sought to curb the independence of the judiciary and weaken the rule of law. The erosion of human rights through limitations on media freedom, clampdown on protest, and further loss of trust in Turkey’s politicized criminal justice system have deepened political polarization in the country.1 The rollback of human rights has taken place against a background of mass anti- government protests last year, and corruption allegations that go to the very heart of the AKP government and emerged out of a simmering conflict within the political establishment between the AKP and its former ally, the influential Gülen movement led by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. On the positive side of the balance sheet, the government’s negotiations with imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan remain on track, offering a unique opportunity for forging a genuine peace process with the Kurds, which is key to progress on human rights in Turkey. At the same time, there is a clear risk that failure to address the larger rollback on rights may unravel the embryonic peace process. The government’s increasing use of repressive measures, including restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression and interference with online media, came to the attention of the world with the crack down on the Gezi protests in Istanbul and other cities in May-June 2013. In December 2013, a major corruption scandal came to light when police announced arrests and criminal investigations in cases implicating senior government officials and 1 A recent Pew poll demonstrated this: Pew Research Center, “Turks Divided on Erdoğan and the Country’s Direction,” July 2014, http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/30/turks-divided-on-erdogan-and-the-countrys-direction/ (accessed August 16, 2014). 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2014 members of their families. The government responded by attempting to limit police powers and increase executive power over the institution that administers the judiciary; by reassigning judges, prosecutors, and police officers, and more recently by arresting police officers involved in the investigations; and by seeking to silence social media and traditional media reporting on the issues. The corruption investigations and the government’s response are seen by many commentators in the context of the AKP’s growing political conflict with the Gülen movement, which is influential in the education system in Turkey, parts of the media, the police, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary.2 In particular, the Gülenist-AKP conflict is deepening the crisis of Turkey’s already politicized and faction-ridden judiciary.3 Winning successive elections by large majorities, President Erdoğan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, and AKP government ministers appear to take the view that majoritarian power takes precedence over the rule of law.4 This report argues that they have also used the actions of their political opponents to justify greater executive control of the police and judiciary and cracking down on fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly. The report outlines some of the areas where the government needs to take urgent steps to reverse this authoritarian drift. It focuses on four areas: human rights steps in the peace process with the PKK; threats to the rule of law; the reinforcement in the present of a culture of impunity, including a pattern of impunity for violence against women; and restrictions on speech and media, and on the rights to assembly and association. 2 The political struggle between the government and the Fethullah Gülen movement, which Human Rights Watch takes no position on, had emerged before the corruption scandal broke. See, for example, Seda Sezer, “Feud between Turkey’s Erdogan and Influential Cleric Goes Public,” Reuters, November 21, 2013, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/21/uk- turkey-erdogan-gulen-idUKBRE9AK12020131121 and “More Arrests Amid Turkish Power Struggle,” Deutsche Welle, December 20, 2013, http://www.dw.de/more-arrests-amid-turkish-power-struggle/a-17312969 (both accessed September 14, 2014). 3 Emma Sinclair-Webb (Human Rights Watch), “In Turkey’s political context rule of law is the real loser,” commentary, Open Democracy, April 5, 2014,