"The Turkish parliament is turning what should have been a defining moment of change into just another lost opportunity," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "And Turkish citizens will be the real losers here."

After making little progress on human rights in 2001, Turkey's leaders are now hurrying through a package of constitutional reforms, apparently to placate the European Commission, currently preparing its annual report on Turkey's progress towards accession to the European Union. But the measures fall well short of the E.U.'s "Copenhagen criteria" for human rights and democracy among applicant states, Human Rights Watch said.

The constitutional package does not address the practices that facilitate torture. Council of Europe and U.N. experts have for years urged Turkey to cease incommunicado police detention, where most torture occurs. Yet the proposed constitutional changes will not guarantee detainees prompt access to legal counsel. The provisions will reduce the length of police custody from seven to four days, but further legislation will be required to shorten the police custody of detainees in the southeastern provinces under the State of Emergency, where detainees can currently be held for ten days.

Human Rights Watch said the proposed constitutional changes also fall short on the death penalty. Turkey has maintained a sixteen-year moratorium on the judicial death penalty. The proposed changes would abolish the death penalty for civil offenses but retain it in circumstances of "war, the near threat of war and terrorist offenses." Most of the fifty executions since the 1980 military coup have been for offenses under those headings. The proposed changes will likely prove unsatisfactory to the E.U., which has made a priority of death penalty abolition.

Human Rights Watch also said that the constitutional changes would do little to expand freedom of speech for journalists and politicians in Turkey. Currently, Turkey's constitution offers no protection for any "statement challenging the unity of the state," punishable under hundreds of laws and regulations. In an apparent effort to bring the constitution in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, the original draft constitutional amendment changed reference to prohibited "statement[s]" challenging the unity of the state to "actions." The latest version refers instead to "activity," which judges, police and governors are likely to interpret as a license to continue their restrictions on freedom of expression and association.

"The package contains some worthwhile measures," said Andersen. "But many glaring constitutional shortcomings have been overlooked." Some of the changes may facilitate the use of minority languages in broadcasting, but the bar on education in minority languages remains intact. There will be no recognition of the right to conscientious objection, even though this was specifically recommended by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance in his 2001 report on Turkey. The reform also ignores the rapporteur's recommendation that the vague notion of secularism contained in Turkey's constitution and law be replaced by clearly stated formulations reflecting international human rights standards. In its National Plan for Accession to the E.U., the Turkish government suggested that it would remove government influence on the judiciary through the High Council of Judges and Prosecutors, but this too has been left out of the constitutional reform.

"For decades, successive Turkish governments have enacted cosmetic measures to ease relations with international partners while preserving the balance of fear between state and citizen," said Andersen. "Unfortunately, with these proposed constitutional changes we're seeing that pattern repeated once again."