VIII . Detailed Recommendat ions

To the Turkish Government

Enhance mechanisms to prevent human rights violations by law enforcement officials

• Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, and implement the Protocol through the creation of an independent national body to carry out regular and ad hoc unannounced visits to all places of detention.
• Prior to ratification, urgently take steps to permit independent visiting of places of detention by representatives of NGOs, lawyers, medical professionals, and members of local bar associations.

Monitor policing functions and conduct

• Closely monitor the implementation of the Law on the Powers and Duties of the Police.
• Introduce mandatory reporting by police on the use of stop and search duties, article 1 of the revised law (incorporated as article 4/A in Law no. 2559), and article 3 of the revised law (incorporated as revision to article 9 in Law no. 2559). Police should be required by law to provide any individual stopped with a form setting out the name and identity number of the officer carrying out the stop and search, the reason for the stop and search, and the outcome.
• Introduce strict monitoring of when pepper gas and teargas are used in public order policing and ensure that the police are trained appropriately in the use of such substances for crowd control and in other policing. Initiate prompt, independent and thorough enquiries into reported misuse of pepper gas and teargas (in particular reported use in confined spaces) and excessive or arbitrary use.

Monitor police investigations

• As a matter of urgency establish an effective independent police complaints authority with adequate resourcing and a robust mandate to carry out prompt, impartial and thorough investigations into allegations of police misconduct, that are capable to leading to the identification and prosecution of offenders.
• Pending the functioning of such an authority ensure that police units against whom there are allegations of misconduct are immediately excluded from any role in conducting the investigation of such incidents, beyond that of providing witness statements. Authority should be immediately handed over to the prosecutor, assisted as necessary by police teams from different stations.
• Where there are allegations of police misconduct subject to investigation, prohibit the security directorate from making public statements that absolve the police of responsibility or suggest the guilt of the other party. Such public statements demonstrate an unwillingness to suspend judgment on cases pending a prosecutor's investigation and send the signal that police officers benefit from institutional impunity when they commit human rights abuses.
• Similarly, prohibit police and governor's offices from issuing statements that prejudice the outcome of investigations.

Improve effectiveness of criminal investigations

Evidence

• Ensure that video and audio recording in police stations of all interviews with suspects in custody, and of all locations in police stations, is operational at all times, cannot be tampered with or erased, and is promptly and routinely made available to public prosecutors for purposes of investigation of allegations of human rights violations in custody.
• Ensure that all physical evidence is left in situ until the arrival of the prosecutor. Prosecutors should immediately proceed to ensure that evidence is complete, and has not been tampered with or been lost. Courts should treat the possibility that evidence has been spoiled as a central factor in a trial, rather than as a peripheral matter of negligence.

Chain of command

• Ensure that prosecutors investigate the responsibility of commanding officers where law enforcement officials are alleged to have perpetrated serious human rights violations. Commanding officers who know or should have known of such acts, and who fail to take action to prevent and punish them, should be included in prosecutors' investigation and, where appropriate, face sanctions.

Address flawed trial proceedings against police officers

• Ensure hearings take place without undue delay by introducing regulatory timeframes for the provision of evidence; an improved and sustainable regulatory framework for trial hearings; and by improving the mechanisms for thorough pretrial preparation.
• Ensure sanctions are imposed against law enforcement officials who flout summonses to appear in court as witnesses or defendants.
• In cases where courts decide to hold closed hearings for reasons of "public security," courts should state clearly what those security concerns are and why it is defensible to withhold information about the trial. Human rights violations committed by members of the security forces and public officials are clearly a matter of great public interest and there should be compelling reasons to restrict information about such cases.

Impose disciplinary sanctions

• Ensure that effective and meaningful disciplinary sanctions are imposed on law enforcement officials who commit serious human rights violations.
• Commanding officers who know or should have known of such acts, and who fail to take action to prevent and punish them should also face disciplinary sanctions.
• Suspend from active duty officers under investigation for torture and other ill-treatment and ensure their dismissal if convicted.

Introduce centralized data collection

• Ensure centralized, efficient, up-to-date, disaggregated data collection on serious abuses by law enforcement officials in order to reach a clear picture of the effective operation of the law.
• Introduce measures to ensure improved medical reporting of torture or ill-treatment and improved forensics.
• Make the Forensic Medical Institute independent both functionally and formally of the Ministry of Justice.
• Take urgent steps to promote the acceptance as evidence by courts of medical and psychiatric reports from university research and teaching hospitals, and other expert bodies.

Introduce legal reforms

• Prevent a return to incommunicado detention by repealing revised article 10b of the Law to Fight Terrorism, which permits the right of a detainee suspected of terrorism offenses to legal counsel from the first moments of detention to be delayed by 24 hours at the request of a prosecutor and on the decision of a judge.
• Revise appendix article 2 of the Law to Fight Terrorism, revised in June 2006, and article 4 of the Law on the Powers and Duties of the Police, to ensure that the use of force by law enforcement officials is compatible with relevant international standards that provide that lethal force be used as a last resort where necessary in order to protect life.
• Revise Law 4483 on the Trials of Civil Servants and other public officials, and take any other necessary legislative measures to ensure that civil servants, including police and other law enforcement officers of all ranks, can be prosecuted without administrative authorization for all serious crimes or abuse of power.
• Repeal the statute of limitations for the crime of torture.

To Turkey 's International Partners and Monitoring Bodies

• The European Commission, Parliament and European Union member states should highlight the problem of police violence and impunity in their dialogues with Turkey, and make full use of Turkey's accession process to help advance the recommendations outlined in this report.
• The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the Committee for the Prevention of Torture should make full use of their mandates to take on the issue of police violence and impunity in Turkey and help advance the recommendations outlined in this report.
• United Nations human rights mechanisms, in particular the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Torture and on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Committee Against Torture, and the Human Rights Committee should make full use of their mandates to scrutinize the problem of police violence and the accompanying impunity for it in Turkey, and help advance the recommendations outlined in this report.