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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Turkey
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Helsinki Watch: Turkey
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Respect for human rights deteriorated markedly in Turkey in
1991. In comparison with 1990, more people died in detention
under suspicious circumstances, and more people were shot and
killed by security forces in raids on houses, attacks on
demonstrations and other suspicious circumstances. Torture
continued to be rampant. Writers were detained and prosecuted.
Journals were banned and confiscated. And the freedoms of
assembly and association were frequently infringed.
</p>
<p> Turkey's Kurdish minority, in particular, continued to
suffer. As the Turkish government launched attacks on the
Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK)--a militant separatist
organization which has been waging a guerrilla war against the
Turkish government since 1984--villagers were detained,
arrested, tortured and sometimes killed by official security
forces. In addition, hundreds of civilians were forced to
abandon their villages because they refused to provide armed
village guards as directed by the security forces.
</p>
<p> On the positive side, thousands of political prisoners were
released from prison, some of whom had been in prison for as
long as ten years. The Turkish Grand National Assembly repealed
several onerous provisions of the Penal Code, but unfortunately
replaced them with an equally onerous Anti-Terror Law.
</p>
<p> Torture continues to be used routinely in Turkey, largely in
the political sections of police headquarters during the
investigative phase of a case. During 1991, Helsinki Watch
received regular allegations of torture in detention, including
beatings; spraying naked and blindfolded prisoners with highly
pressurized cold water; suspending prisoners by their wrists or
arms; applying electric shocks; rape and attempted rape;
forcing a truncheon into the vagina or anus; squeezing genitals;
falaka (beating on the soles of the feet); sleep deprivation;
denial of food or water; dragging prisoners along the ground;
placing prisoners in a tire and beating them; forcing prisoners
to sleep on a wet floor; forcing prisoners to listen to others
being tortured; spitting in prisoners' mouths; denying
permission to use the toilet; and pulling or burning hair.
</p>
<p> Torture is practiced on children as well as adults. Helsinki
Watch has received credible reports of children between the
ages of eleven and seventeen who were detained by police and
beaten in custody for such offenses as writing political slogans
on walls, taking part in demonstrations, or belonging to
illegal organizations.
</p>
<p> Although then-Prime Minister Turgut Ozal issued a decree in
September 1989 requiring that detainees have immediate access
to attorneys, access is almost never granted. Prompt access to
an attorney and family members could be an important step
toward ending the practice of torture during police
investigations.
</p>
<p> In some recent cases, torture appears to have resulted in
death. Helsinki Watch received reports of deaths in detention
under suspicious circumstances of fifteen people in 1991. In
three of these cases, Turkish authorities alleged that the
prisoners had killed themselves.
</p>
<p> In six of the fifteen cases, authorities reported that the
deaths were under investigation. In a seventh case, two
security-force members are on trial for killing a detainee.
Helsinki Watch has received no reports of prosecutions of
police, gendarmes or soldiers. Torturers and others responsible
for deaths in detention are rarely investigated and tried and
almost never convicted. Abdulkadir Aksu, the former minister of
the interior, reported that in the past ten years only thirty
of 382 security officers tried on charges of inflicting torture
were convicted. Many of those convicted were sentenced to no
more than a fine. Major Cafer Tayyar Caglayan, for example, who
was convicted of forcing residents of Yesilyurt village in
Cizre, Mardin, to eat human excrement, was initially sentenced
to one year in prison, but on July 18, 1991, his sentence was
commuted to a fine and then suspended.
</p>
<p> During 1991, Helsinki Watch received reports of forty-five
fatal shootings by police or gendarmes in raids on houses,
attacks on demonstrations, and other suspicious circumstances.
In some cases, government authorities characterized these
incidents as shoot-outs between security forces and terrorists,
or as responses to provocation on the part of demonstrators or
others.
</p>
<p> Nineteen of the forty-five fatalities were people who were
killed in raids on houses in Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara. In
each case, police alleged that the houses were used by militant
left-wing groups. Police accounts in most of these cases
conflicted with those of eyewitnesses as to whether the police
had been fired upon. However, no police were reported killed in
any of these raids, which strongly suggests that the killings
were summary executions.
</p>
<p> In addition, ten people, including children aged eleven and
thirteen, were killed by police using live ammunition as a
method of crowd control during demonstrations in 1991. Most of
these demonstrations were apparently peaceful. In one case,
during a demonstration at the funeral for human rights activist
Vedat Aydin, whose murder is described below, police fired live
ammunition into a crowd of thousands in Diyarbakir, killing
seven people. The police claimed, but eyewitnesses denied, that
stones had been thrown at security forces. Whichever is the
case, the throwing of stones would not have justified the use
of lethal force. The U.N.'s Basic Principles on the Use of Force
and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials prescribe that "[l]aw
enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons
except in self-defense or defense of others against the
imminent threat of death or serious injury...and only when less
extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In
any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made
when strictly avoidable in order to protect life."
</p>
<p> Helsinki Watch also received reports from southeastern and
western Turkey of sixteen extrajudicial killings in 1991 under
other suspicious and often unexplained circumstances.
</p>
<p> On April 12, the Turkish Parliament enacted an extremely
disturbing Anti-Terror Law. The law defines terrorism so
broadly that almost anyone can be convicted, including, for
example, anyone who presses for changes in Turkey's economic or
social system. Terrorism is defined as "any kind of action
conducted by one or several persons belonging to an organization
with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as
specified in the Constitution, the political, legal, social,
secular and economic system."
</p>
<p> The Act contains other troubling provisions as well, which:
</p>
<p>-- Limit the right of counsel for those charged with terrorism.
</p>
<p>-- Make it more difficult to convict police or other government
officials responsible for acts of torture.
</p>
<p>-- Exempt police officers who have taken a confession from
testifying in court about the circumstances of the confession.
</p>
<p>-- Restrict prison privileges for convicted terrorists.
</p>
<p>-- Limit meetings and demonstrations.
</p>
<p>-- Curtail press freedom.
</p>
<p>Since enactment of the Anti-Terror Law, Helsinki Watch has
received many reports of people prosecuted for hanging
political posters, holding meetings of relatives of prisoners,
publishing articles or books concerning Kurdish questions, and
similar offenses.
</p>
<p> During 1991, scores of journalists, editors and writers were
investigated, charged, tried and sometimes convicted for what
they had written, edited or published. The Turkish Daily News
reported in May 1991 that members of the press had faced a
judge 586 times during 1990, and had received final sentences
totaling over 126 years in prison. Statis