On the invitation of the Turkish
government, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were expected to send their
first-ever election observation missions to Turkey this week.
The high-stakes elections come just one month before an expected
European Union decision on whether it is ready to set a date for
membership negotiations with Turkey. Human rights and political
freedoms have been a key stumbling block to Turkey's membership in
the Union.
"The presence of these international observers at the elections
is a very welcome step," said Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director
of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
"Reports of abuses during the 1999 elections and in the run-up to
this year's vote make clear that independent monitoring is needed.
We hope that Turkish officials will give the monitors full
cooperation."
A Human Rights Watch election backgrounder published today
details problems with the 1999 elections and identifies a number of
political rights violations and threats of violations that cloud the
campaign phase of the current elections, including:
- threats of closure of the mainly Kurdish Rights and Freedoms
Party (Hak-Par) and People's Democracy Party (HADEP);
- the right to stand for election denied to three former party
leaders-of the Socialist Democrat Party, HADEP, and Welfare- as well
as of the current leader of the Justice and Development Party, due
to criminal convictions they received for the expression of
non-violent opinion;
- threats against and detention of representatives of the Turkish
Communist Party and the Freedom and Solidarity Party for attempting
to hang posters;
- detention of candidates of Hak-Par and the mainly Kurdish
Democratic People's Party (DEHAP)- formed by former HADEP members
and members of the Labor Party and the Socialist Democrat Party; and
- intimidation by security forces of villagers in the southeast,
warning them not to vote for DEHAP.
The 1999 elections were marred by reports of abuses by police,
security forces, and local government officials, who sought to
influence the outcome of the vote through arbitrary arrests,
threats, intimidation, confiscation of election material, and
exclusion of party representatives from villages where they were
engaging in campaign activities.
In 1999, there were also serious reports that the ballots
themselves had been tampered with. Human Rights Watch was shown
examples of partially burned ballot papers, cast for HADEP, that
children had found while playing in the town garbage dump in the
days after the election. HADEP officials alleged that the ballots
had been taken from ballot boxes and destroyed. A picture of one of
the burned ballots is available on Human Rights Watch's website.
"International monitoring of this year's elections is clearly
warranted," said Andersen. "We hope that the presence of the Council
of Europe and the OSCE will help ensure that they are free and
fair."
A Human Rights Watch delegation is also in Turkey to document
events over the election period. They will hold a press conference
marking the release of a new Human Rights Watch report,
Displaced and Disregarded: Turkey's Failing Village Return
Program, which describes the plight of those displaced by the
fifteen-year conflict in the southeast and the persistent obstacles
to their return.