On Tuesday 21st January, and for the first time in five years, Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan is due in Brussels to address Turkey’s accession talks with the European Union (EU). The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) seizes the opportunity of Turkey’s PM visit to call on the Turkish authorities to stop criminalising peaceful protest in Turkey.
The Turkish PM’s visit coincides with the EU’s human rights consultation on Turkey, and with several events evidencing violations of freedom of peaceful assembly in Turkey: the indictment of 255 protesters of the Gezi movement under the Anti-Terror Law on 23 December, and the passing of a law on Friday 17 January that makes it a crime to administer emergency first aid without government authorization. This law was drafted in the context of the Gezi protests and clearly aims at heavily sanctioning doctors who carry out their professional duty by helping wounded protesters at the scene of demonstrations.
Hence the EMHRN exhorts EU decision makers to remind Turkey of its obligations, under the European Convention for Human Rights and in the context of the adhesion process, to protect and facilitate freedom of expression and the right to gather peacefully.
Protests broke out on 27 May 2013 with the aim of preventing the Municipality to transform the Gezi Park into a shopping area. Violent police intervention against peaceful occupation of the park led more people to join the demonstration, this time in reaction to the excessive use of force by State forces. The following days saw more and more people swelling the crowds of demonstrators, together with an increase in the repressive response by the authorities- in an attempt to smother the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. This diverse and massive popular movement (in which about 3 million people took part, 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.
An EMHRN delegation visited Turkey from 3 to 10 July 2013 and met different stakeholders and witnesses on the ground to investigate these events. During the inquiry, many allegations were made as to serious human rights violations, particularly ones affecting freedom of assembly, the right to life, the right to be free from torture and ill treatment, the right to liberty, and freedom of expression.
The EMHRN has issued a report (available in English and Turkish) on these incidents and documented EMHRN’s main findings, including an assessment of the relevant domestic laws, drawing on international human rights standards. The report concludes on a series of recommendations to the Turkish authorities.
In particular, the EMHRN urges:
The EU
– to encourage the Turkish Government to protect and facilitate freedom of expression and the right to gather peacefully.
The Turkish Government
– to protect and facilitate the right to peaceful assembly, and allow pluralism and the public expression of dissent to everyone without discrimination of any kind;
– to 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 treatments; ensure that impunity will not prevail and that suspects are tried in an independent tribunal regardless of their position as civil servants;
– to abandon all judicial proceedings against peaceful protesters, release all those detained where there is no specific and concrete evidence of violent behaviour 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;
– To immediately drop the Law criminalizing the provision of emergency aid without government’s authorization, as it was elaborated in the context of the Gezi protest with the clear aim of penalizing doctors and students that provide medical aid to wounded protesters. This law outrageously breaches Turkey’s international obligations and the professional duty of Doctors;
– to reform the current Law nº 3201 on Security Affairs and other police regulation laws and the Law 2911 on Meetings and Demonstrations. Adopt clear, detailed and binding regulations on the use of force and anti-riot weapons in line with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials and following the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments;
– to reform other laws (such as the Anti-Terror Law, and the Turkish Penal Code) that limit freedom of assembly and expression.