Turkey commits rights violations: Report by UK MPs

Turkey was hit by a corruption scandal in December 2013 in which several key people in the government were involved. In response, the ruling party started a campaign against judiciary, police and media to cover up the corruption. A report by senior British lawyers describes the measures taken by the government of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to silence dissenting voices as “human rights violations”.

Following scandalous claims against major government members and Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013, Turkish authorities seem to have become extremely sensitive to allegations of corruption, and have detained many and imposed some restrictions on media.

In the course of the scandal, incriminating wiretap recordings of Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, and other top officials as well as businesspeople emerged on the Internet.

In one of the audio recordings, Erdogan is allegedly heard asking his son, Bilal, to turn millions of euros in cash stashed at several houses into “zero”. Bilal at one point can be heard saying, “There is 30 million euros more.”

Erdogan, however, denounced the recordings as a “vile montage” and accused US-based preacher Fethullah Gülen (sen below) and his supporters of being behind the graft scandal to overthrow his government.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) purged the police force and judiciary of pro-Gülen figures in what was seen as an attempt to stop a legal investigation into alleged cases of graft and abuse of power.

Against a background of the corruption case and the Turkish government's pressure on police, judiciary and media, especially those believed to have a link with Gülen or his movement referred to as Hizmet (Service), a report, funded by the US-based Journalist and Writers Foundation, whose honorary chairman is Gülen, slammed the government over its "actions" since December 2013.

The 95-page report is written by Lord Woolf, the former lord chief justice, Sir Edward Garnier QC, the Conservative MP and former solicitor general, Prof Sir Jeffrey Jowell QC, the director of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, and Sarah Palin, a barrister specializing in media law.

Producing “supine” courts, censoring websites, restricting freedom of expression, stifling corruption investigations and subjecting detainees to degrading treatment are among the allegations that the report makes against the Turkish government.

“We have analyzed the actions taken by the Turkish government and its agents since December 2013 and have unanimously concluded that there has been a distinct reversal in the reform process that had been taking place since Turkey began accession talks with the European Union in 2005,” the authors state in the report.

The report said that around 40,000 police officers, civil servants, judges and public prosecutors have been dismissed from their positions since the December 2013 corruption investigation.

Most of the targeted individuals are believed to be followers of Gülen, whom Erdogan has accused of being behind the corruption allegations and social media leaks against his government.

“We regard this as a serious setback for Turkish democracy and its respect for human rights, in particular for the freedom of speech and the rule of law,” the report said.

The government’s introduction of some legislation for tightening the grip on judiciary and the Internet triggered huge criticism both inside and outside the country, with many activists calling them the direct violation of people’s right for democracy and freedom of expression.

“From the perspective of international human rights law, we consider that the Turkish government has perpetrated significant human rights violations against supporters of the Gülen movement that would justify legal action before the European Court of Human Rights, in the absence of suitable remedies in Turkey,” the British MPs said in the report.

“The arrest and detention of journalists, media executives, police officers, public prosecutors and judges who are perceived to be supporters of the Hizmet movement, and their treatment in custody, has raised serious concerns about violations of their right to liberty and security,” the report noted.

The report names Hidayet Karaca, the chief executive of the Samanyolu Media Group, as one of the many who were arrested on the “dubious allegation” of establishing a terrorist organization.

Karaca and over 70 other police officers were ordered to be released by two Turkish judges, Metin Özçelik, judge of the Istanbul 29th Penal Court of First Instance, and Mustafa Başer, from the Istanbul 32nd Penal Court of First Instance.

The ruling, however, was not upheld; the two judges were first suspended by Turkey’s Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors following their verdict and were subsequently arrested.

The judges were charged with membership of “an armed terrorist organization” and impeding the work of the government.

Erdogan welcomed the detention orders, describing as illegal the earlier court ruling by the two judges to release Karaca and the officers.

A recent survey released by pollster Gezici shows Turkey’s ruling party has seen a decrease in public support, casting doubt on the party’s survival chance ahead of snap elections.

According to the poll, the AKP’s popularity has slipped from 40.9 percent in June to 39.3 percent.

Another opinion poll by the Turkish MetroPoll research company said that the AKP public support stood at 41.4 percent, showing that the party did not have enough support to form a single-party government in the country’s snap elections scheduled to take place on November 1.

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