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TURKEY

Human Rights Developments

Human rights abuses in Turkey continued at an appalling rate in 1993. Security forces continued to shoot and kill civilians in house raids and during peaceful demonstrations; brutal torture continued to be a routine and systematic interrogation technique (fifteen people died in suspicious circumstances while in police custody); hundreds of people were assassinated in southeast Turkey and the government failed to investigate their deaths; and members of the Kurdish minority in southeast Turkey were killed, tortured, detained and forced to abandon their villages and fields. Moreover, free expression continued to be sharply restricted, as were freedom of assembly and association.

The promises made by the coalition government that took office in November 1991 (made up of Suleyman Demirel's True Path Party and Erdal Inonu's Social Democratic Party) continued unfulfilled. Following the death of President Turgut Ozal in April, Parliament elected former Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel president. In June, Tansu Ciller, a member of the True Path Party, became prime minister-the first woman to hold that office. The coalition government endured; unfortunately, so did the pattern of gross violation of human rights.

In southeast Turkey, a guerrilla war started in 1984 by the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK),a separatist group, escalated. Of more than 7,000 deaths that have taken place in the nine-year conflict, more than 2,000 took place in 1993. Support for the PKK

in southeast Turkey appeared to grow rather than to decline.

In western Turkey, extremist groups that espouse political violence, chiefly Dev Sol (Revolutionary Path), continued to attack and kill current and former police and government officials; at least fifteen were killed in 1993.

Unfortunately, the government chose to deal with these problems by shooting and killing suspected members of extremist groups in violation of international agreements and standards. Rather than capture and try suspects, police and gendarmes (who perform police duties in rural areas) frequently raided houses or apartments believed to be used as homes or meeting places by suspects and shot and killed the occupants, announcing afterward that the suspects were killed in shoot-outs, although eye-witnesses often reported that no shots were fired by the victims. Tellingly, reports from the press and human rights groups indicate that, although many suspects died in such raids, security forces were rarely killed or injured in the same raids creating a strong presumption that the suspects were deliberately executed. Press reports show that forty-two people died in house raids during the first ten months of 1993: twenty in Istanbul, one each in Ankara and Izmir, and twenty in southeast Turkey. In these killings, police effectively acted as investigators, judges, juries and executioners.

Contrary to international agreements and standards, Turkish security forces continued to use deadly force against demonstrators in 1993. On August 15, police or gendarmes shot nineteen demonstrators dead during demonstrations in southeast Turkey celebrating the ninth anniversary of the start of the guerrilla war. Ten demonstrators were killed in Kars, six in Agri, and three in Malazgirt. One police special-team member was also killed.

Cruel torture of suspects of both ordinary and political crimes continued as a routine part of their interrogation by police and gendarmes, in violation of international standards and agreements. Eighteen people died in suspicious circumstances while in police custody through the end of October. Two deaths took place in Istanbul, one in Ankara, one in Gaziantep, and the rest in southeast Turkey. Officials explained the deaths variously as suicides or the results of heart attack or illness.

An appalling pattern persisted in southeast Turkey, in which civilians were killed in death squad fashion--frequently with one bullet to the back of the head. In almost no case did the government make serious efforts to investigate and to bring the killers to justice. Among those executed in this way were a Kurdish Member of Parliament; four journalists and two newspaper sellers, all connected to pro-Kurdish, left-wing journals; two human rights leaders; several members of the Democratic Party and its forerunner, the People's Labor Party; doctors, lawyers and other community leaders, as well as shepherds and villagers. The Turkish government was unresponsive to protests and pleas to investigate from Helsinki Watch and other human rights organizations. It was widely believed in Turkey that a counter-guerrilla organization tied to security forces had carried out the killings. Several of the murdered journalists had written articles describing a purported relationship between security forces and the alleged counter-guerrilla force.

As in previous years, Turkish authorities pressured villagers in the southeast to act as village guards prepared to fight against the PKK. When they refused, security forces often ordered their villages evacuated. More than 400 villages have reportedly been forcibly evacuated since January 1992. During 1993, many villages were bombed, houses deliberately incinerated, and livestock destroyed. Security forces' treatment of Kurdish villagers was often savage. In some instances, villagers were forced to gather in the village square, to lie on the ground and be beaten for hours by security forces. Many Kurds allegedly uninvolved with the PKK were detained, interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned.

On its part, the PKK violated the laws of war by increasingly targeting civilians. Many werekilled, others kidnapped, beaten and released. The PKK captured foreign tourists, detained them for days or weeks and then released them unharmed, in an attempt to focus international attention on southeast Turkey. In October, alleging false and incomplete reporting from the area, the PKK banned national and foreign journalists on threat of death.

Free expression continued to be sharply restricted by the government. While mainstream newspapers were largely untouched, left-wing and/or pro-Kurdish journals suffered harassment, raids, confiscations and trials. The newspaper Ozgur Gundem was particularly hard hit. Six of its journalists and five distributors were killed between June 1992 and July 1993. In addition, thirty-nine of its first 228 issues were confiscated by a state security court and proceedings begun to ban its publication. Charges against Ozgur Gundem included "separatist propaganda," "portraying Turkish citizens as Kurds," "using the words 'Kurd' and 'Kurdistan' in a way that breaches the Constitution in which Turkey is defined as a unitary state." Other journals suffered similar treatment.

At least seven journalists were tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms of from five to ten months. Moreover, in the course of the year, many newspaper offices were raided, journalists beaten, and dozens of journalists detained and interrogated.

Similar forms of intimidation restricted speech. Publishers and writers were charged and tried for their writings, speakers for their speeches, activists for hanging posters or distributing leaflets. One writer, Edip Polat, was sentenced in June to two years in prison. Frequent charges were: insulting Ataturk, or the president, or the armed forces, or holding symposiums on the Kurdish question. Many meetings and marches were banned, and demonstrators frequently beaten, interrogated and detained.

The Right to Monitor

The Human Rights Association (HRA), a large membership organization with forty branches throughout Turkey, continued to monitor human rights. The Human Rights Foundation, an independent group set up by the HRA, maintained a documentation center with detailed information on cases of abuse. Both operated legally.

Two HRA officials and one member were assassinated in 1993: Metin Can, the president of the Elazig HRA branch, was murdered with HRA member Dr. Hasan Kaya in February; a founding member of the Urfa branch, Kemal Kilic, a journalist, was also assassinated in February. No one had been charged with their deaths as of November.

HRA branches were harassed and raided, their documents seized and their members detained, tortured, and charged with various political offenses. The Istanbul branch was raided in January. In September, the Public Prosecutor took the Istanbul HRA to court and asked that it be closed down because of a panel discussion in December 1992 in which the Kurdish question was discussed. The trial began in October.

Several branches were closed: Elazig (one week), Mersin (first for fifteen days and then indefinitely), and Adana (re-opened in January after two months' closing). The Usak branch was investigated, its monthly bulletin said to contain writing based on racial and regional factors, provoking people to commit crimes. The monthly bulletin of the national HRA was seized because of an article on Kurds written by Ismail Besikci, a Turkish sociologist who has spent more than ten years in prison for his writings on Kurds.

Detained, tortured or threatened with death were HRA officers and members Husnu Undal, Mehmet Gokalp, Hafiz Uzun, Yavuz Binbay, Osman Ozcelik, Gulseren Baysungur, and Haci Oguz. Ercan Kanar, the Istanbul branch president, was tried for insulting the state when he said in a speech, "the state is not only a terrorist but also immoral." Four HRA members were among 126 people tried for making an application to the United Nations regarding human rights abuses.

In addition, meetings were banned, HRA members who wanted to meet with prisoners werethemselves detained, and members were tried for distributing leaflets and for collecting signatures for a petition to end rape during war.

Human rights groups from outside Turkey have conducted fact-finding missions without difficulty.

U.S. Policy

Turkey continued to be an important U.S. ally; in 1993 it was the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid. In fiscal year 1993, Turkey received $450 million in military aid in the form of loans and $3,100,000 in military grants, as well as "excess military equipment," including Cobra Helicopters and A-10 aircraft. It also received $125 million in economic grants.

The Clinton administration sent mixed signals on human rights abuses in Turkey. Speaking during Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's visit to Washington in October, President Clinton stated: "Like our own nation, Turkey is a shining example to the world of the virtues of cultural diversity," thus completely ignoring the Turkish abuses of the Kurdish minority.

On the other hand, meeting with Turkish leaders in Ankara in June, Secretary of State Warren Christopher reportedly asked them to cooperate with a detailed United States proposal to help end widespread human rights abuses in Turkey and indicated that the U.S. would reward "better behavior" by Turkey with economic cooperation and favors. Unfortunately, at the same time, the U.S. announced that it would provide Turkey with $336 million in aircraft and other military equipment.

The U.S. Department of State developed a new human rights strategy for Turkey, hoping to engage the Ciller government in a discussion of positive actions that would measurably improve the protection of human rights in Turkey. The three areas of concentration were torture, extrajudicial killings and freedom of expression.

Concerning torture, the U.S. has asked Turkey to work toward the elimination of torture, incommunicado detention, and arbitrary arrest by implementing the Criminal Trials Procedure Law (CMUK) and extending its jurisdiction throughout Turkey and to crimes in the jurisdiction of state security courts; establishing mechanisms for government oversight of police and gendarmes; human rights training for police; and prosecution of officials responsible for abuses. Helsinki Watch opposed implementation of the CMUK; although some useful provisions were included in the law, it provided for very long detention periods (eight days for non-political suspects; as much as thirty days for political suspects) in violation of international law and standards.

Regarding freedom of expression, the U.S. has recommended a dialogue with opinion makers representing many groups; the right to free speech, including the use of the Kurdish language; and protection of freedom of the press. No specifics were given in the plan released to the public. Helsinki Watch believed that Turkey should be pressed to investigate promptly, thoroughly and impartially the murders of the sixteen journalists assassinated since February 1992; and to release from detention or prison all those imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their views.

As to the U.S. objective of eliminating disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and excessive use of force by government forces, the State Department did not publicly release specific recommendations.

Turkey's dreadful abuse of its Kurdish minority-detention, torture, killings, forcible evacuations, bombing and shooting of civilians-was not addressed in the U.S. proposals.

The U.S. continued to provide anti-terrorism training to Turkish police. In 1992, Helsinki Watch representatives saw displayed on the wall of a police official a State Department certificate stating that he had been trained in the U.S. That official was in charge of a division of the police in which political suspects were routinely and systematically tortured. Helsinki Watch met with Congressional staff members in an effort to persuade them to work towardending such training; the policy was not altered, however. The State Department reported that it had established unspecified benchmarks to be used in future anti-terrorism assistance programs. Helsinki Watch strongly opposed U.S. training of Turkish police. In our experience, human rights training is useless unless the political will exists to order torture stopped. Moreover, when the U.S. provides training to police who continue to torture detainees, the U.S. is implicated in such torture.

U.S. efforts to increase the dialogue with Turkey on human rights abuses during 1993 were commendable; Helsinki Watch will monitor these efforts to see if they are fruitful.

The Work of Helsinki Watch

Helsinki Watch continued in 1993 to attempt to improve human rights in Turkey by focusing national and international attention on Turkey's dreadful human rights record and by urging the U.S. government to pressure the Turkish government to end human rights abuses. Helsinki Watch sent a mission to Turkey in June 1993 in cooperation with the HRW Women's Rights Project; the purpose was to investigate the government's use of "virginity controls" (examinations) to control and punish women. A report was planned for release in early 1994.

In March, Helsinki Watch issued a major report, The Kurds of Turkey: Killings, Disappearances and Torture, which described the government's abysmal abuse of the Kurdish minority. A comprehensive newsletter issued in August, "Free Expression in Turkey, 1993: Killings, Convictions, Confiscations," described in detail abuses of freedom of the press, publishing, speech and the arts. Four other newsletters were released denouncing deaths in detention and execution-style killings by unknowns.

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