10 December 2018 marks the 69th anniversary of the day the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
 
For a world where atrocities caused by war would never happen again and an international order dominated by peace be established, the idea of United Nations was introduced during the WW2 and it yielded results immediately after the end of the war and the Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, USA.

After being ratified by adequate number of states, it was introduced on 24 October 1945. In the first two articles read “the UN was established for peace”.

The Preamble to the Charter presents the concept of fundamental human rights and underlines the significance of human rights in protecting peace. Under Article 55 of the Charter, the UN was given the obligation to promote “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion” with a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which were necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations.

The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was commenced on 29 April 1946 with the establishment of the “Commission on Human Rights” within the UN.  Elenor Roosevelt, the wife of US president at the time, was elected for the chair of the commission.  Vice chair was from China and rapporteur was from Lebanon. The Commission was made up of representatives from 18 countries (the USA, Australia, Belgium, Belarus, China, Philippines, France, India, England, Iran, Lebanon, Panama, the Soviet Union, Chile, Ukraine and Yugoslavia)

In that way there were various types of states, like capitalist, socialist, and Islamic systems. There were 80 experts from different parts of the world, with different ethnic, philosophical, and religious backgrounds. First draft was prepared by the French commissioner Prof. Rene Cassin, a constitutional lawyer who would win the Nobel Peace Prize (1968). The rapporteur was Joseph Malik of Lebanon, who made great effort to add the concept of human dignity in the Declaration.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a preamble and 30 articles was drafted by the commission and adopted by the UN General Assembly assembled in Paris on 10 December 1948. 56 of the 58 states having right to vote within the General Assembly were present during the voting. 48 voted in favour of the Declaration, including Turkey. 8 states abstained from vote. 6 of them were Socialist States namely the Soviet Union, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. There were 2 countries, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, which abstained from vote during the voting of the entire Declaration.

Turkey signed then published the Declaration on the Official Gazette volume 7217 on 27 May 1949 upon the decision of the Board of the Ministers. The decree reads “on 6/4/1949, it was decided by the Board of the Ministries upon the request no 36084/122 dated 28/3/0949 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that ‘the Declaration of Human Rights’, adopted on 10/02/1948 with resolution no 217 (111) of the UN General Assembly,  upon publication in the Official Gazette,  is to be interpreted in schools and other educational bodies, to be broadcast on radio and newspapers”

The Declaration was translated into more than 500 languages. It features as the mostly-translated human rights document.

The assembly passed resolution 423 (V) inviting all States and interested organizations to adopt the 10th of December as Human Rights Day. The Human Rights Day is the celebration of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, which inspired billions of people, and also an occasion when people talk about, argue about, and look for solutions to the problems towards human rights. 

Human Rights Association (HRA) celebrated the day in the year 1986, when it was founded, and since then celebrated the weeks including the 10th of December as the week for human rights. This has become a tradition and the headquarters and branches hold various events throughout that week.

We want Not the State of Emergency but Human Rights

The SoE is still in force. Under the cover of the SoE, basic rights and freedoms have been suspended. This had been reported to the UN and the CoE by Turkey. According to HRA, Turkey does not need a State of Emergency. The only thing we need is democracy and human rights.

The attempted coup on 15//07/2015 was quashed within the next day; the ones involved in the attempt were detained. Violence, then, came to an end. Political parties in the National Assembly particularly, all political parties, all NGOs and democratic organisations took a stand against the coup and condemned it. Despite all this social legitimacy, the Government started a counter-coup process as if all these had never happened and declared the State of Emergency all across the country.

When looked at the 120th and 121st articles of the Turkish Constitution, it is indicated that the state of emergency may be imposed on condition of widespread violence and during the SoE, the decree-laws may be related to the purpose of the SoE. Both the negative effects of counter-coup process and the steps taken in order to cope with Fetullah Gülen’s organisation having infiltrated into public administration have disabled the check and balance within the state and jurisdiction was completely deactivated. As a result, there happened to be no judiciary body to investigate emergency decree-laws. Therefore, the Government is able to pass any arbitrary regulation.

According to the 121st article of the Constitution, a decree-law must be submitted to the approval of the parliament within the day it was issued. So far, 28 decree-laws have been issued (from 667 to 694). Some of them were not submitted to the parliament on the very same day, which is the breach of the Constitution. The same article reads that decree-laws must be discussed and resolved by the parliament within 30 days. Until now, only 5 decree-laws were approved of by the law. They are the decree no 667 approved by the law no 4749, decree no 668 by the law no 6755, 669 by the law 6756, 671 by 6757 and 674 by 6758, all of which were later published on the Official Gazette. In this respect, only 5 of the 28 decree-laws were approved. Other 23 are in force, which is a clearly in breach of the Constitution. 

Within the SoE period the Constitutional and Legal Regime of Turkey has changed.

Apart from declaring the state of emergency in breach of the Constitution and not submitting the decrees to the Parliament, the Government practiced 306 permanent amendments within 300 laws with decrees, so made the state of emergency a permanent regime.

Under the state of emergency conditions, and as a result of loads of anti-democratic behaviour of the Government, a referendum was conducted on 16 April 2017 and some constitutional amendments passed, which was unlawfully approved of by the Supreme Electoral Council. Then the constitutional regime of Turkey has been changed into a regime based on a single-man, a model which is called Turkish-type Presidency or Presidential Government Model. At the very beginning of this transformation, the party-member President started his operations swiftly and turned Turkey into a party-state governed under the state of emergency.

Suspending Basic Rights and Freedoms under the State of Emergency Conditions is Unacceptable!

In the Constitution’s 15th article, clause 2, reads “Even under the circumstances indicated in the first paragraph, the individual’s right to life, and the integrity of his or her material and spiritual entity shall be inviolable except where death occurs through lawful act of warfare; no one may be compelled to reveal his or her religion, conscience, thought or opinion, nor be accused on account of them; offences and penalties may not be made retroactive, nor may anyone be held guilty until so proven by a court judgment”. In addition, in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which were signed by Turkey, those rights cannot be suspended in any way. However, having looked at the practices of the Government under cover of the state of emergency, we can easily conclude that Turkey violates the above mentioned rules.

During the state of emergency, the Commissioner for Human Rights of European Council has visited Turkey a few times and launched reports. The Venice Commission of the European Council has come to Turkey for 4 times and prepared reports. Three of the special rapporteurs of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Office have visited our country and written reports. All those reports state that basic rights and freedoms were restricted arbitrarily and beyond the limitations issued in the conventions and covenants, and that these violations should be stopped quickly, and the state of emergency be lifted.

The most important warning was issued by the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe reopened the monitoring procedure in respect of Turkey on 25/04/2017. This decision suggested Turkey to lift the state of emergency, release the politicians, journalists and activists in prison.

Defending Human Rights is a Human Right

Before the state of emergency, Turkey had already got into a term of armed conflict and has been going through gross pain and destruction. Kurdish Matter has been the most prominent issue because it could not be solved through peaceful policies.

We would like to remind that Turkey has no choice other than solving the matter peacefully and restarting the de facto de-escalation period of 2013-2015. For solving the problem, firstly dialogue channels must be opened and then peace desk should be set concurrently. Turkey has to protect the Dolmabahçe Declaration, and the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan must be lifted.

Human rights defenders remind people of peace even in hard times and advocate the right to peace. All international agreements and the UN Convention on Human Rights in particular, on basic rights and freedoms mention peace in their preambles repeatedly.

The State of Emergency is an Assault to Women’s Struggle
 
Both in our geography and other places around the world, there are armed conflicts started for various reasons. There are grave violations of rights in these settings. The very first victims of those violations are always women. We have been going through hard times when violence is normalised especially since 15 July 2015. It is very terrifying that a part of the society has supported the images of tortured people posted in social media, and not a single judicial investigation was launched against them.

In our geography, male-dominated, militaristic, and sexist point of view is still strong. This view considers women as the honour of men. Furthermore, intolerance towards some types of gender identities is on the increase. Hence, the number of women being murdered and subjected to violence has been rising remarkably.

Women’s Rights Groups have gained important accomplishments within statutory law with the help of international solidarity. Also, the Turkish Republic signed important conventions on violence against women. However, these accomplishments are ignored by the judicial bodies both at home and in international settings. Judges and prosecutors are indifferent to those international conventions. Perhaps, the most prominent one is the Istanbul Convention of the European Council. Besides, Turkey is the first signatory to the convention.

The main purpose of the Convention is to protect women against all types of violence. According to the 3rd article of the Convention, “violence against women” is understood as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and shall mean all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”

Article 6 imposes on the State Parties the task to bring about gender sensitive policies. The Istanbul Convention is of great importance in terms of creating policies related to violence against women and implementing preventive measures. However, judges and prosecutors in Turkey are not even aware of the Convention, let alone practice it. Considering that international law is above the domestic law, this is a very serious problem. Again, the convention charges the states with “taking the necessary measures to promote changes in the social and cultural patterns of behaviour of women and men with a view to eradicating prejudices...”

Especially, social violence legalised with the declaration of the state of emergency right after the attempted coup of 15 July has had very negative impacts on women’s lives. Following the declaration of the state of emergency, the incidents of violence against women has increased and there have been very clear examples of violence by officials and enforced practices against women in prisons. Along with the state of emergency, many women were dismissed from their posts, or suspended from work; lots of women’s organisations were closed down and a lot of women were imprisoned as a result of violation of freedom of expression. It is very desperate that these practices have been continuing during the Human Rights Week. The State of Emergency has struck women and has crushed women’s liberation.

It is a right to Resist Tyranny

Human rights defenders often state that resisting oppression and tyranny is a right, and they use their right to resistance. Naturally, while resisting, they do it with non-violent methods and civil disobedience actions. We would like to restate that we have no other choice than using our right to resistance in order to protect our rights under the SoE conditions and remind people of democracy and human rights. 

We do not want the state of emergency but human rights and democracy.

HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION HEADQUARTERS