Stop criminalising peaceful protest in Turkey!

EMHRN reports lethal use of force, appalling numbers of injuries and criminalisation of legitimate professional activities by Turkish authorities

The EMHRN sent an inquiry mission to Turkey between 3 and 10 July 2013 to investigate the protest movement taking place since late May and its violent repression.

Protests started on 27 May 2013, aimed at protecting Gezi Park (close to Taksim square in central Istanbul) from the Municipality’s plans to transform the park into a shopping area. The violent police intervention against this peaceful occupation of the park led more people to demonstrate against the excessive use of force by State forces. The repression of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly increased as protests spread across the country during the following days. This diverse and massive popular movement (in which at least 2.5 million people participated according to government figures) denounced police violence and served as a focal point for rising anti-government sentiment due to a range of political, economic and cultural reasons.

The EMHRN delegation was composed of an Executive committee member, jurists and members of the Working Group on freedom of association and assembly. The delegation met numerous representatives of human rights organisations, professional associations of lawyers and doctors, trade unions, the Taksim Solidarity Platform, academics, police union representatives and the national Ombudsman’s office. The delegation also requested meetings with the Istanbul Governorate, the Ministries of Interior, of Health and of Justice but unfortunately these requests were not granted.

The delegation was able to gather numerous concordant testimonies, and to document evidence of the intensity of the use of force against mainly peaceful protesters. According to independent medical sources, this caused 5 deaths and resulted in more than 8000 people being injured in 13 different provinces of Turkey.  More than 1000 persons were detained, with at least 35 currently under arrest, and numerous in-process investigations against protesters and professionals who assisted them as lawyers and doctors. The EMHRN will soon publish a complete report on the findings of this inquiry.

Some conclusions and recommendations can already be stated:

1-      The Turkish authorities interfered with the right to freedom of assembly by dispersing peaceful protests. The unauthorised character of these demonstrations was given more importance than their peacefulness, contrary to international human rights law. Moreover, there was no genuine attempt to negotiate with protesters about how their peaceful protest could be protected and facilitated.

2-      The Police used excessive force both during the initial dispersal of the Gezi park protest and in all subsequent dispersals of peaceful gatherings, most of the time without either warning or giving sufficient time for protesters to disperse voluntarily. Around 150 000 tear gas canisters were shot[1]; a large quantity of rubber bullets were fired, tear gas or other chemical substances were added to the water discharged by water cannon, and numerous protesters were beaten up during police attacks or during detention. Several women alleged that they had suffered sexual harassment while in detention. The majority of injuries – including severe injuries such as 104 head traumas (with 3 people currently in a critical condition) and 11 eye losses[2] – resulted from the direct targeting of metal tear gas canisters at individual protesters (notwithstanding a recognition that firing such canisters directly at people and from short distances is contrary to national and international regulations). One man was killed by live ammunition. In this light, the State failed in its duty to protect its citizens and in its positive obligation to protect and facilitate the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The police failed to distinguish between violent and peaceful individuals, and used force indiscriminately against all people alike – including entirely peaceful participants, by-passers, injured persons and doctors attending them. Medical assistance was deliberately hindered by targeting doctors wearing white overalls, spraying tear gas into make-shift clinics and later by criminalising medical assistance to protesters. Legal support to protesters was also penalised, with dozens of lawyers being detained.

The EMHRN calls on the Turkish authorities to:

– protect and facilitate the right to peacefully assemble, and to allow the public expression of dissent by giving priority to all forms of democratic dialogue and denouncing systematic repression;

– initiate independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of deaths and injuries caused by excessive use of force, and all allegations of torture and other ill or degrading treatment; ensure that impunity will not prevail and that suspects are tried in an independent tribunal without regard to their position as civil servants;

– abandon all judicial proceedings against peaceful protesters, release all those detained where there is no specific and concrete evidence of violent behavior by the individual in question, and ensure that there will be no other judicial or administrative investigations in the future; in particular, cancel criminal and anti-terror judicial investigations against political activists;

– abandon all disciplinary sanctions against lawyers and doctors for carrying out their duty to assist, withdraw the circular of the Ministry of Health requiring the names of doctors who assisted injured persons during the protests and of their patients; and withdraw the draft law penalising the establishment of make-shift clinics without a permit (since such a requirement is contrary to the ethical commitment of doctors);

– reform the current Law nº 3201 on Security Affairs and other police regulation laws , in order to guarantee a strict regulation of the use of force and of police weapons and implement the principles of proportionality and progressivity. Reform Law nº 2911 on Meetings and Demonstrations to better protect freedom of assembly, and in particular exclude the possibility of criminal and disproportionate sanctions for organizing or participating in peaceful unauthorised gatherings.