The European Union should make the persistent problem of torture in Turkey a priority for high-level E.U.-Turkey meetings.
In a letter sent to E.U. officials, Human Rights Watch said that to tackle the problem of torture, Turkey should be required to immediately stop holding detainees "incommunicado," or without access to a lawyer or other independent person. Human Rights Watch sent the letter as Turkey's minister for relations with the E.U., Mesut Yilmaz, arrived in Brussels to address the European Parliament in advance of next week's meetings.
As long as detainees can be held where no outsiders can see them, police can torture them without fear of detection, Human Rights Watch said.
The E.U. recently identified the fight against torture as a priority issue and adopted special torture policy guidelines designed "to support and strengthen on-going efforts to prevent and eradicate torture and ill-treatment in all parts of the world."
"This is an opportunity to put the E.U. guidelines to work," said Holly Cartner, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "The fastest way to curb torture in Turkey would be to abolish incommunicado detention. Open up the jails to independent monitors, give detainees access to lawyers, and their torturers will no longer enjoy impunity."
The E.U. identified curbing torture as a priority in its Accession Partnership document for Turkey, the list of economic and political reforms that Turkey must undertake to join the E.U. In response, the Turkish government adopted a National Plan, intended to map out how it would meet the E.U.'s requirements.
The National Plan does not mention abolition of incommunicado detention. While the plan provides for eventual enactment of a new criminal procedure code, which could address the incommunicado detention issue, Human Rights Watch said that waiting for that reform would entail an unacceptable delay in tackling the torture problem.
"Every year, there are thousands of victims of torture in Turkey," Cartner said. "We cannot afford to wait around for the Turkish parliament to overhaul the whole criminal procedure code, when the simple act of abolishing incommunicado detention would make such a difference."
Human Rights Watch recommended that Turkey put elimination of incommunicado detention among the short-term objectives to be identified in its revised National Plan, expected in September. Human Rights Watch sent the E.U. a full critique of the Turkish National Plan in April.
