Human Rights Watch offered its own assessment of Turkey's record in a backgrounder on the October 9 publication of the European Union Regular Report on Turkey's Progress Towards Accession. "Hits and Misses on Turkey's EU Accession Targets" includes information about the impressive strides that Turkey made during 2002 and the principal tasks that remain.
"During the past year, we have seen more substantial human rights improvements than any year since the 1980 coup," said Jonathan Sugden, Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch. "Instead of the previous tiny grudging steps, we have seen two major strides and the promise of further improvements."
Sugden said the major strides include the abolition of the death penalty and the removal of constraints on minority language education and broadcasting.
Human Rights Watch also welcomed news Monday that the Justice Ministry had prepared a draft law to curb torture by permitting all detainees access to a lawyer from the first moments of detention. The 11th-hour initiative aimed to satisfy yet another EU condition before the EU report release.
Human Rights Watch cautioned, however, that Turkey still faces a number of human rights challenges, including restrictions on free expression, prison conditions and violations of the rights of internally displaced persons and refugees.
"There are two areas in particular where Turkey must still act in order to demonstrate that it has broken with its history of human rights abuses: torture and freedom of expression," said Sugden.
Human Rights Watch highlighted the importance of clear progress on free expression for non-violent opinion and full implementation of the anti-torture initiative, prior to the European Union's December Copenhagen summit.
Human Rights Watch's researcher on Turkey, Jonathan Sugden, will be in Brussels for the publication of the Regular Report on October 9 and is available to offer his evaluation of the report after 15:00 Brussels time.
