What’s happening on October 6:
On October 6 the European Commission will publish its 2004 Regular Report on Turkey’s progress toward European Union membership. As usual, this regular report will include large sections on the economic criteria, and on Turkey’s ability to assume “the obligations of membership” (The Acquis), but the really significant part this year will be the first section which deals with the political criteria. Turkey cannot move on to the next stage in its candidacy until it has fulfilled these criteria. The economic and political criteria for EU membership were determined at the Copenhagen meeting of the European Council in 1993 and require that candidate countries should have achieved “the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.” On October 6 the European Commission will also issue a recommendation to the next European Council, to be held on December 17 in Brussels, whether or not Turkey has met the necessary human rights standards and can proceed with its European Union candidacy – that is opening negotiations for membership.
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In 1999 the Helsinki European Council decided that “Turkey is a candidate State destined to join the Union on the basis of the same criteria as applied to the other candidate States.” On the basis of this decision, in 2000 the European Commission set out its view of how the Copenhagen criteria applied to Turkey in an “Accession Partnership.” The partnership document was revised in 2002, and the Turkish government produced a national plan in response to that. Regular Reports, Accession Partnerships and National Plan are available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/turkey/, and this is where the Regular Report will appear on October 6.
The European Commission’s recommendation on October 6, the decision on December 17, and the period between them are a major crossroads for the Turkish government, for the future of human rights in Turkey, arguably, for the EU.
A crossroads for the Turkish government: Immediately after its election in November 2002 the AKP government, which has described itself as “Muslim Democrat” using the analogy of Christian Democracy elsewhere in Europe, undertook to clinch Turkey’s EU candidacy. In doing so it has taken risks by enacting reforms that might have been openly challenged by the army, which sees itself as the guardian of the unitary secular Turkish state established by its founder Atatürk in 1923—reforms such as permitting the broadcasting of minority languages, including Kurdish, and reducing military influence in government through the National Security Council. It has also risked offending its own constituency among the religious right, by postponing or refusing to enact measures they expected from AKP as a single party government with a substantial minority—measures such as lifting the ban on university education for women who choose to wear the headscarf, and improving access to higher education for students from clerical high schools (imam hatip liseleri), the preferred form of state education for many AKP voters.
A crossroads for human rights in Turkey: Just ten years ago, torture was pandemic, with deaths in custody running at approximately one a week; extrajudicial executions, political killings and “disappearances” were occurring almost daily; villages were being burned by security forces in intense conflict with the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and hundreds of thousands of Kurdish farmers driven out of their homes; reference by writers or politicians to Turkey’s minorities was regarded as separatism and frequently punished with imprisonment.
By 2004 the situation has improved markedly, but there remain areas of serious concern (see below). Since 1999 the promise of EU membership has supported a dynamic process of reform. Progress has been halting, and occasionally disappointing, but when there has been movement, it has been consistently in the direction of improvement.
The reforms have not been welcome in all areas of Turkish society. The reforms have reduced the power of the unaccountable state, which has not always pleased the bureaucracy, the police and the army; the reforms have broken away from the monolithic unitary image of the state, which some have viewed as a dangerous betrayal of Atatürk’s legacy; the reforms have improved the status of the non-Muslim minorities which some view as part of a highly suspect project by the Christian world. Some Turkish nationalists, like eurosceptics in EU member states, believe that the very nature and motivation of the reforms are a surrender of sovereignty.
Many observers agree that a negative recommendation in October (which comments by the Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen indicate is unlikely) or a negative decision in December, could trigger a nationalist backlash which could severely damage the progress that has been made in human rights. The vehicle for such a backlash could well be the True Path Party, currently highly eurosceptic, which, in government in the mid-1990s, presided over some of the worst abuses.
A crossroads for the EU: It is no secret that many members of the public and politicians in the EU are opposed to Turkey’s membership, and hope to see a temporary or indefinite postponement in December. The main reasons for resistance to Turkey’s membership are that it is a large country, that it is relatively poor, and that its population is overwhelmingly Muslim. Human Rights Watch cannot comment on the validity of these general reservations, but we would draw attention to the very positive influence that the admission process has added to the reform process that was already stirring in Turkey as civil society began to feel its strength.
In 1999 the EU made an undertaking to evaluate Turkey’s progress on the basis of the political criteria. In the intervening years, individuals, groupings within society and the Turkish government itself have relied on that undertaking to reach the current position. At the time it established the criteria, the EU acknowledged that human rights had become an essential underpinning of the union. It would be appropriate therefore for the EU to give considerable weight to the success it has helped achieve in the recovery of Turkey’s human rights record, and to the possible costs if the process were thrust into doubt at this most sensitive stage.
The difficulties of evaluation:
The problem for the Commission is that in spite of the considerable progress since 1999, the human rights record remains patchy, and not entirely conclusive.
A positive evaluation may be criticized by those who oppose Turkey’s membership, or genuinely feel that it has not yet made sufficiently convincing progress, arguing that the Commission has unreasonably lowered the bar, at the Turkish government’s insistence, and because of extraneous considerations such as Turkey’s strategic importance to the union.
A negative evaluation may be criticized by the Turkish government and public, arguing that the Commission has unreasonably raised the bar, at the insistence of those who oppose Turkey’s membership, and because of extraneous considerations (size, relative poverty etc).
What to watch for:
The Regular Report will walk through the various areas of the political criteria, including:
Relations between the army and the government: In 2004, the military representatives were removed from the High Audio-Visual Board (RTÜK) and the High- Education Board (YÖK), arguably the last formal signs of the overriding authority of the army on political affairs within Turkey. Nevertheless, the army continued to use informal channels to influence affairs, and did not hesitate publicly to criticise the government’s attempt to change the admission procedures to universities to even the chances of students from clerical schools in May 2004. The government withdrew its draft bill, and even dealt a sharp slap at the EU for questioning the army’s right to comment on such matters.
The judicial system: In June parliament abolished the State Security Courts (DGM) which dealt with anti-terror law offences, and allocated them to special criminal courts. This was more a symbolic gesture: the main problems with DGM courts was that until recently they included a military judge and sometimes a military prosecutor, and police were permitted to hold DGM detainees without access to legal counsel. Both these provisions had already been abolished.
The independence of the judiciary remains prejudiced by the continued arrangement of the minister of justice’s chairing the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, that deals with appointments and promotions within the judiciary.
Death penalty: In 2004 Turkey took a place in the forefront of the world abolitionist movement by removing the death penalty from the constitution in May, and ensuring that it will not be used even in time of war.
Torture and ill-treatment: Ill-treatment and even torture continue to be serious problems, but there has been a drastic reduction in extent and severity; deaths in custody as a result of torture are approaching a zero average, with none so far this year. Impunity remains a problem, with few convictions of torturers, and appropriately heavy sentences rarely imposed. The 2003 Regular Report stated: “With regard to the prevention of torture and ill-treatment the Government has committed itself to a policy of “zero tolerance” with respect to torture. Legislation in this area has been considerably strengthened. While implementation has led to some concrete results, the situation is uneven and torture cases persist.” Performance in 2004 would suggest a similar evaluation in the forthcoming report. The persistence of abuses in police stations appears to principally be a function of lack of supervision. For a fuller discussion of this subject and recommendations of what the government could do to rectify the problem before December, see http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/turkey/2004/torture/.
Freedom of expression and freedom of the press: The government continues to nibble away at the vast battery of laws and regulations that inhibit freedom of expression. This is a process of two legislative steps forward, and one practical step back as overzealous prosecutors seek neglected corners of the legal system to open prosecutions against people for making comments that too openly breach the classic taboos of the role of the army, religion or ethnicity in politics, or are too strongly critical of state institutions. There are currently three people held for expressing their non-violent opinions, who should be released immediately:
Hakan Albayrak (Milli Gazete) is in Kalecik prison serving a 15 month sentence under Law No. 5816 regarding Crimes Committed against Atatürk, for suggesting that Atatürk had not been buried with proper ceremony.
Fatih Çolak is in Malatya prison under article 159 of the former Turkish criminal code (now supervened by the new criminal code which was passed by parliament in September 2004 and will become law when approved by the president) for “insulting state institutions” in a local newspaper.
Nevin Berktaþ is now serving a sentence under article 169 of the Turkish criminal code (supporting an armed organization) because of her book about isolation in F-type prisons.
The release of the four Kurdish former parliamentarians Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doðan and Selim Sadak in June 2004, on the order of the supreme court prosecutor, was ten years too late, and the release was pending re-trial rather than unconditional. They are moreover under investigation for speeches they made since their release. Nevertheless, the televised pictures of their emergence from prison to exuberant celebrations, coming perhaps by chance on the same day that state television broadcast its first program in Kurdish, sent a strong message that times have changed.
A large number of freedom of expression cases are still going through the courts. Most prosecutions are now ending acquittals or fines rather than prison sentences. But clearly such prosecutions should not be opened in the first place, and suggest that the justice ministry is not effectively carrying out its constitutional duty to monitor the conduct of prosecutors.
Freedom of association: The government continues to ease the restrictions on associations by small degrees, but the Law on Associations still reads like a text from a police state, and for organizations viewed with suspicion by the authorities, including human rights organizations, day to day life feels like life under a police state: annual meetings and press conferences are often monitored by plain clothes police officers toting video cameras, while local prosecutors maintain a hail of litigation.
Freedom of assembly: Here too we see the pattern of forward steps confounded by conservative implementation on the ground. A persistent freedom of assembly problem has been that police would treat open-air press conferences as illegal demonstrations and then break them up. In June 2004 the Interior Ministry passed a circular which permitted organizations to hold press conferences without giving official notification, but permitted governors to impose prohibitions on where they can be held. Predictably, perhaps, governors in several provinces have been issuing unacceptably restrictive orders that, for example, press conferences may not be held within 100 yards of a party building. The trade union Eðitim-Sen has challenged this element of the circular at the Administrative Court of Appeal.
Freedom of religion: Law and practice in this area is extremely complex. The Turkish state sponsors but exerts considerable control over one particular form of Sunni Islam (Hanafi school). Approximately 80% of the population is Sunni, and approximately 20% Alevi (a branch of Shi’a more or less unique to Turkey). About one percent of the population is non-Muslim, consisting of about 60,000 Armenians (mainly Orthodox), about 2,500 Greek Orthodox: about 25,000 Jews, about 25,000 Assyro-Chaldeans: about 25,000 Catholics; approximately 5,000 Protestants. There are also a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Of particular importance to non-Muslim communities is their ability to acquire, hold and dispose of property through their charitable foundations. A succession of legal changes since 2002 have improved this situation, but there are still a number of outstanding discriminative issues concerning for example, liability to tax and property transfer from one foundation to another. For a full survey of these problems see Otmar Oehring, “Human Rights-Turkey on the Road to Europe – Religious Freedom?” at http://www.missio-aachen.de/menschen-kulturen/themen/menschenrechte/downloaduebersicht.asp.
Gender equality: The 2003 Regular Report stated: “Violence against women is still widespread in Turkey. According to different reports, more than half the female population are subject to physical and psychological forms of violence within the family environment.” For further information on gender violence see AI report: Turkey: “Women confronting family violence,” EUR 44/013/2004. However, there have been important steps forward: the constitutional changes of May 2004 did remove gender discriminative language from the constitution and the new criminal code recognized marital rape as an offence and removed reductions of sentence for rapists who marry their victims.
Minority rights and protection of minorities: A small number of language courses are now operating in Kurdish and other minority languages. The state broadcasting authority began broadcasts in minority languages, including Kurdish, in June, and applications by private radio and TV stations are currently being considered. Children can now be registered under Kurdish and other non-Turkish names, though a problem remains with names which include letters which do not appear in the Turkish alphabet such as W and X. This movement on language issues is striking, and a genuinely historic break with traditional attitudes. Problems and official suspicion remain – for example, in July the General Director of Security Ramazan Er stated that at the moment of their release the former parliamentarians Leyla Zana and others had committed a series of offences including “speaking Kurdish.”
Internal displacement: In the early 1990s at least 380,000 Kurdish villagers were forcibly displaced by security forces in an intense conflict in the mountains of southeast Turkey. Most remain in conditions of hardship and poverty in the cities with no state assistance or compensation. Government initiatives for return have been mainly cosmetic while the government has refused to implement recommendations of intergovernmental bodies – most importantly abolition of the corrupt paramilitary village guard corps. The 2003 Regular Report stated: “The situation of internally displaced persons is still critical.” The Turkish government has been in dialogue with UN agencies about future return plans, but has resisted entering into a partnership with the international community in resolving displacement, despite being urged to do so by UN and Council of Europe mechanisms. See Human Rights Watch briefing: “Last chance for Turkey’s displaced?” at http://hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/turkey/2004/10/
Human Rights Watch’s general assessment of the progress of reforms:
In summary, the EU candidacy process, combined with a general reduction in political violence and a strong growth in the size and confidence of civil society has produced a strong reform dynamic. In most areas of concern there are outstanding legislative tasks, and patchy or grudging implementation by some governors, prosecutors, judges and police. But in respect for freedom of expression, religion, association and assembly and respect for minorities Human Rights Watch research finds a consistent and important trend of improvement.
In the fight against ill-treatment and torture, progress is fragile due to the historic lack of supervision of police stations. The government could, between now and December, use existing laws to establish an effective systems of internal and independent monitoring of police stations. Human Rights Watch expects the Commission to recommend measures to intensify supervision of places of custody.
The problems of the displaced have not been effectively tackled, and there is little in practical terms that the government could do to produce an improvement on the ground before December. It could, however, commit to a plan of action that provides for the specific involvement of international organizations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which are already working in Turkey and have the expertise and means to facilitate returns. This would ensure that any government return programs are in accordance with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and that the programs are actually implemented on the ground. Such a guarantee of quality and experience would also greatly facilitate attracting international funding. This could be achieved by December, and we hope that the Commission will recommend such a move.
Finally, Human Rights Watch regrets that neither the right of conscientious objection, nor the infringement of the rights of women denied access to higher education because they choose to wear the headscarf, were addressed within the Accession Partnership process and has expressed its concern to the Commission on these matters.