European rights group slams Turkey post-coup excessive emergency decrees
Europe’s leading human rights organization says Turkey has gone “too far” with emergency measures adopted after an abortive mid-July coup, violating international law.
The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe added in an opinion adopted by its experts on Friday that the Turkish government had “good reasons” to declare the state of emergency in reaction to a “dangerous armed conspiracy,” but noting that the measures it implemented also violated the country's constitution and international law.
The opinion, requested by the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, also condemned the mass dismissal of “tens of thousands of public servants” by the government based on lists added to emergency decrees rather than on “verifiable evidence” in each individual case.
It also decried Ankara’s liquidation of associations instead of putting them under temporary state control.
The experts added that people were fired from their positions or taken into custody based on “connections” to a terror group that were “too loosely defined and did not require a meaningful connection with such organizations.”
Turkey introduced the state of emergency on July 20, after it declared the end of the coup attempt by a group of military officers. More than 270 people were killed in incidents surrounding the failed putsch. Ankara extended the emergency rule by three more months in October, and in late November it announced that the measure would continue as long as necessary.
The Turkish government has arrested more than 37,000 people as part of the ensuing crackdown, accusing most of the suspects of having ties to Fethullah Gulen, the US-based cleric whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the coup. Tens of thousands have also been dismissed or suspended from their positions in the military and public institutions.
International rights groups argue that Ankara’s crackdown has gone far beyond the so-called Gulenists and targeted Kurds as well as government critics in general. The European Parliament recently decided to temporarily halt accession negotiations with Turkey over the large-scale crackdown.
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