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Summary

Independent police station visiting is increasingly recognized worldwide as a safeguard for detainees and a protection against abuse. In Turkey such visiting is an innovation. Notwithstanding great improvements in combating torture and ill-treatment, the Turkish government has acknowledged the need for and the usefulness of police station monitoring by signing the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT) in September 2005. The OPCAT sets forth a detailed and rigorous system of independent international and national monitoring of prisons with the aim of preventing torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

At least as an interim measure before systems based on the OPCAT are established, the network of provincial human rights boards (coordinated by the Human Rights Presidency of the Prime Minister’s Office) are ready and willing to monitor police stations and gendarmeries, and some have already begun making effective visits. As the involvement of human rights boards expands towards countrywide coverage, there is a clear need for boards to work to high common standards, to set themselves a pace of monitoring work that will provide a reasonable frequency of visits, and to overcome an evident reluctance to carry out visits unannounced and in response to reports of ill-treatment in their province.

Provincial governors’ close identification with the boards may help to establish the boards in the early stages of their monitoring activities, but already there have been instances where it has undermined the perceived or actual independence of a visiting delegation. In the longer term, the independence of monitoring activities should be enhanced, and the involvement of Turkey’s most respected nationwide human rights nongovernmental organizatons (NGOs), even in a consultative capacity, may significantly promote credibility and trust. Reporting of the boards’ visiting activities is as yet limited, but the Human Rights Presidency has committed itself to detailed reporting in the near future.

Rolling out an interim independent monitoring system based on the human rights boards could ensure that the high standards observed in some police units are applied consistently throughout the country.