Background Briefing

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Introduction: Sustaining Improvement

On September 16, 2005, Turkey signed the Optional Protocol to the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), thereby committing to participate in “a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty, in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”1 The signing of the protocol is a very welcome step that acknowledges the need for better supervision of places of detention.

From 1997 onwards the Turkish government introduced a series of reforms to protect detainees against torture and ill-treatment. The shortening of detention periods and the abolition of incommunicado detention dramatically reduced the number and gravity of incidents of torture in police stations and gendarmeries. However, there are still reports of ill-treatment, mainly in the form of beating, slapping, kicking, insults, and threats. These occur particularly where police or gendarmes ignore, bend or “forget” rules about detention periods, registration of detainees, informing detainees of their legal rights, access to legal counsel, and health checks.2 These are problems that can be tackled by better supervision.

In recent briefing papers and letters,3 Human Rights Watch suggested three forms of supervision which might improve law enforcement agencies’ compliance with safeguards against torture and ill-treatment:

1) Effective routine internal supervision of police stations and gendarmeries by provincial governors, sub-governors, and prosecutors. These visits are already happening in some provinces, but since they are not publicly reported, the extent and effectiveness of this supervision is unknown.4

2) Rapid response from the justice, interior, and prime ministries to individual allegations of torture, including sending ministry inspectors. Interior ministry inspectors were sent to investigate the beating of demonstrators in Istanbul on March 6, 2005, but Human Rights Watch is not aware of any similar high-level response to any allegation of ill-treatment in police stations over the past year.

3) Visiting of police stations and gendarmeries by an independent monitoring body. There have been important advances in independent monitoring over the past year, and the purpose of this report is to examine the extent and effectiveness of police station visiting by provincial and local human rights boards.

By signing the OPCAT the Turkish government undertook to establish a system of independent visiting of places of detention within twelve months of signature being ratified by parliament. In practice, there may be a delay of much more than a year before systems under the protocol are up and working.5 Meanwhile, allegations of ill-treatment continue to emerge from Turkey’s police stations, as a consequence of law enforcement agencies’ non-compliance with legal safeguards (see below). There is a need for independent police station monitoring now.

For however long it takes to establish a system of independent police station monitoring in line with the OPCAT, the network of provincial human rights boards coordinated by the Human Rights Presidency of the Prime Minister’s Office can provide a valuable transitional solution. Human rights boards are reasonably well suited to the temporary function of independent police station monitoring. The boards were presented to the public mainly as a body for handling complaints. However, their implementing legislation and regulation authorizes them to visit places of detention,6 and the composition of the boards (a mix of government officials, representatives of professional bodies, and representatives of NGOs) offers a degree of independence. From their role during this transitional period, the boards may also be able to feed experience and ideas into the design and construction of any future national police station visiting system.7

The Human Rights Presidency has said that it hopes to establish a reporting system for police station visits in the near future, but as yet there is no detailed information about the frequency, methods or findings of the visits. Human Rights Watch contacted members of all eighty-one provincial boards between June and September 2005 in order to gain a clearer picture of how, where and how often visits were being made. Another goal was to establish whether, within the work of the boards, bar associations and medical associations (the professional bodies with the most direct interest in making visiting effective) were willing and able to taken the lead on police station visiting, and whether they felt there were any structural obstacles that might prevent the boards from making effective visits. Human Rights Watch interviewed the assistant governors who chair the provincial human rights boards, as well as the medical association representatives and bar association representatives serving on human rights boards. Most members of bar and medical associations interviewed were helpful and open, and willing to share their experiences of working with human rights boards. Governors and assistant governors (with one or two exceptions), were similarly helpful and willing to share information.



[1] Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (adopted December 18, 2002; opened for signature, ratification and accession from February 4, 2003), Article 1.

[2] There are also reports that, in order to escape the controls now in place in police stations, police officers abduct detainees and ill-treat them away from recognized detention centers, e.g. in police cars, on vacant ground, or in unpopulated areas beyond city limits. This is a dangerous pattern, with very real risks of unregistered detainees dying or being “disappeared,” and must be addressed by the Interior Ministry.

[3]See Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, “Eradicating Torture in Turkey`s Police Stations; Analysis and Recommendations,” September 2004, available online at http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/turkey/2004/torture/; and “Turkey: Enhanced Police Station Monitoring will Prevent Torture,” Human Rights Watch Letter to Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gül, April 2005, available online at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/22/turkey10543.htm.

[4] In its December 8, 2005 report on its March 2004 visit to Turkey the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture emphasized once again the importance of the “compliance monitoring procedure.” The CPT visited twenty-one police stations and gendarmeries, and found that most of them had been occasionally visited by prosecutors. The CPT noted that the visits were not frequent (two to three times a year) and “mostly involved perusal of the custody register and a brief tour of the premises.” As an example of what might be called an unprobing approach, it describes how two prosecutors visited seven police facilities in Gaziantep on March 12, 2004, but apparently interviewed no detainees. At the time they made their visits, nine children were held at the Juveniles Department. The CPT’s recommendation on this matter was that “More robust on-the-spot checks of law enforcement establishments are required.” (CPT/Inf (2005) 18) Paragraph 21.

[5] The protocol does not come into force until ratified by twenty states, and there are currently thirteen ratifications. There may be a delay before the Turkish parliament ratifies, and even if the protocol is in force by that time, the Turkish government is still entitled (by means of a declaration under Article 24) to postpone complying with its commitments for up to three years.

[6] Regulation on the foundation, duties and working principles of provincial and local human rights boards, published in the Official Gazette, November 23, 2003. See article 12, paragraphs f, h, and i.

[7] The European Commission’s 2005 Regular Report on Turkey’s progress toward EU membership stated: “A number of provincial Human Rights Boards have begun to carry out unannounced visits to places of detention in a number of provinces. Although a positive development, NGOs have raised doubts about the independence of such monitoring and of the Human Rights Boards in general … Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that this monitoring will represent a first step towards establishing fully independent monitoring as recommended by the CPT and the UN.” The boards may be suited to police station monitoring notwithstanding that they have failed to impress with their performance in dealing with complaints. They do not have the investigative powers, expertise or sanctions necessary to pursue complaints of human rights violations—and even if they did, they would be no more than a duplication of the judicial process. For a critique of the boards’ handling of complaints, see the report of the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General on human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, on her 2004 visit to Turkey (E/CN.4/2005/101/Add.3, 18 January 2005), paras 41-51.


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