Today is the 20th anniversary of the proclamation of 26 June as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
May “The State of Emergency” causing torture be lifted immediately and may “The Convention on the Prohibition of Torture” be practiced!
Following long-lasting preparations, in year 1984, United Nations accepted “the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” and the convention became valid on 26 June 1987 after adequate number of states signed it. 10 years later, in 1997 UN General Assembly underlined the importance of the convention for our civilization and declared 26 June as International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
The convention absolutely prohibits torture. The prohibition of torture is a joint achievement of humanity and a major element of modern human rights law. It features as one of the most remarkable earnings of humanity in modernisation just like the abolition of slavery or enlightenment.
Actually, numerous international treaties and documents like this one have had articles prohibiting torture but with the Convention against Torture the efforts became more comprehensive and absolute and the prohibition was clearly identified.
However, torture has still been used as an inhumane means of punishment and oppression by many states. Recently, there has been an increase in the prevalence of torture not only in authoritarian regimes and dictatorships but also in developed democracies. Especially in Syria and Iraq can be counted as examples where torture has become a daily routine as a consequence of everlasting war and conflict spheres.
For that reason, along with the battle against the emergence of torture, it has become important to support the victims of torture and help them recover from physical and psychological damages. Thus, on the 20th anniversary, it has become more meaningful and important.
Turkey ratified the convention in 1988 and prohibited torture both within its constitution and penal code. Despite all these, over the past years, especially in the South-eastern and Eastern Anatolia Regions, where armed conflict started over in July 2015, and all around the country after the 15 July 2016 attempted coup after when the State of Emergency was imposed, torture and ill-treatment practices and allegations have become more prevalent incomparable to previous times.
After 2015 July, the Government imposed curfews along several cities and towns, which caused the violation against the rights of millions of people. The curfews lasted nonstop for days/months. A curfew itself as mentioned in the reports of a number of organisations and persons the UN the Committee against Torture, European Council Commissioner for Human Rights, is simply a violation of the Convention against Torture. According to the findings of TIHV (Human Rights Foundation for Turkey), in the ongoing process of curfews, from 16 August 2015, when it was first exposed, until 1 June 2017, officially identified 218 curfews were declared covering 10 provinces and 43 districts/towns. These are the provinces (frequency of curfews). DİYARBAKIR (127), MARDİN (32), HAKKÂRİ (20), ŞIRNAK (13), BİTLİS (8), BATMAN (3), MUŞ (4), BİNGÖL (5), TUNCELİ (5), ELAZIĞ (1). According to 2014 census, 1.809.000 people were affected by the curfews and many of their rights mostly right to life and health were seriously abused.
Also, after the armed conflict started in our region in July 2015, there has been an increase in the number of the incidents of torture inside and outside detention centres, in prisons, and during demonstrations. For example IHD Diyarbakır Branch has found that, in 2016 and the first 3 months of 2017 (15 months), in the South-eastern and Eastern Anatolia Regions only, 234 people were tortured in custody, 320 in prisons, 171 outside detention centres, and 106 during demonstrations and protests. According to the Human Rights Foundation for Turkey (TIHV) Diyarbakır Office, in 2016 and the first 5 months of 2017, 277 people appealed to the foundation over torture.
On the other hand, after the military coup attempt, the Government started to use torture and other ill-treatment techniques in order to suppress the coup and control over other opposition groups with a revanchist mentality. According to the statement by the Ministry of Justice on 13 June 2017, 161.751 citizens were investigated and 50.344 were arrested. These figures and the video recordings of torture and inhumane treatment during arrests right after the attempted coup which were published by the State’s official news agency show the Government’s purpose to make torture and ill treatment visible and widespread.
Since the start of armed conflict in July 2015, including 2016 military attempted coup and during the state of emergency, demonstrators protesting the practices of the state of emergency and curfews, and demanding peace, democracy and justice have been responded so violently by security officers who used disproportionate force that these actions could be considered as torture. For instance, Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça, two of the thousands of civil servants, who protested the injustice they faced and wanted to go back to work, were exposed to violence for days and detained everyday violently when, finally, on the 76th day of their protests they were arrested unlawfully. Also, Veli Saçılık, another state official, was shot with plastic bullets containing chemical tear paint balls from a very close distance, so much that we consider this disproportionate response of the police as torture.
Again in this period, within official detention places and unofficial detention places such as police vehicles, homes, workplaces, gyms, etc, there has been an increase in the prevalence of torture and ill treatment.
Many other regulations have been enacted by state of emergency decrees, damaging procedural actions in search of justice. Firstly, detention period was extended to 30 days, and getting legal counselling, or seeing one’s lawyer in other words, was prohibited within the first 5 days of this period. Since 23 January 2017, detention period was shortened to 14 days and 5-day prohibition was abolished. Through arbitrary practices many legal security rights were made non-functional, such as right to be informed of reasons at time of arrest and of any charges, right to prompt notification of family, right to prompt access to a lawyer, right to medical help, rights to be brought promptly before a judge, proper registration and documentation, right to independent custody visitors, right to trial within reasonable time or release. Along with those arbitrary practices, prolonged detention period has paved the way for torture and other types of inhumane and ill treatment.
Another regulation enacted by decrees is transferring the detainees to detention centres again from prisons to take their statements.
There is another practice which started after the clashes began in July 2015 and made prevalent after the state of emergency, within the South-eastern and Eastern Anatolia Regions. Medical examinations which are to be made periodically under surveillance, while changing detention places and right after the end of detention were done inside police stations or some other places on the pretext of the state of emergency. This has violated the doctor-patient confidentiality, negatively affected the conditions under which a doctor is supposed to examine the detainee and prepare documents independently and impartially. It also annihilates proper circumstances for detainees having exposed to torture so that they cannot express themselves freely. Doctors who refused the practice that contradicts the job a doctor and İstanbul Protocol have undergone disciplinary proceedings and have been in danger of being suspended or discharged from office.
During the same period there has been a great increase in the number of detainees and convicts; in parallel with this rise, torture and other inhumane practices were unusually abundant. The population of prisoners was 55,870 in 2005. This figure, despite some regulations in probation (considered as an implicit general amnesty in state of emergency), has reached 209,941 as of 17 February 2017. Especially after the declaration of the state of emergency, battery (beating) has become a common torture practice in prisons, and political prisoners seen as ‘terrorists’ by the authorities have frequently been beaten in the prison. Similarly, practices like arbitrary treatment and disciplinary punishments, solitary confinement, restrictions of right to health, banishment, arbitrary transfer have soared in an unprecedented scale.
Since 2000, there has been the practice of solitary confinement and small group isolation cells, which damage the physical and psychological unity of prisoners (especially of those in F-Type prisons). The Ministry of Justice circular no 45/1, issued on 22 January 2007, enabling 10 prisoners to spend 10 hours together within a week, and unfortunately not put into practice properly in the past either, was delayed by the state of emergency. The İmralı F-type Prison, where isolation is the most common, should be closed down.
The state of sick prisoners is itself another problem. According to the latest HRA report issued on 22 June 2017, there are 1021 sick prisoners (357 of them seriously ill). According to the Ministry of Justice, by February 2017 there are 841 officially documented sick prisoners.
Another common issue is the enforced counts and naked strip search.
Violence against women and LGBTI individuals by men has risen remarkably.
There have been numerous practices of violence against children and other ill treatment as well as torture in prisons. Despite our efforts, no effective investigation was conducted. Children’s prisons should be closed down and new laws must be passed in order to end child detention.
The number of refugees and asylum seekers has reached to 4 million. According to some NGO reports and statements, there have been serious allegations on torture and ill treatment against them in repatriation centres.
The main reason why torture is so common in our country is the existence of impunity. It is the policy of the state, and officials and executives of all levels have been using a discourse justifying this kind of a culture.
Especially with some laws passed by the end of July 2015 and decrees published following the state of emergency, public officials were equipped with judicial, administrative, and financial impunity over their acts in terms of anti-terror law and within the state of emergency, which made it impossible to struggle against torture and ill treatment and to bring the those public officials before the court. No thorough investigation was launched officially following the images and videos appearing in social media which showed torture following the suppression of the coup. However, should an investigation be launched, some realities such as postponement of the sentence, obligation of permission for filing a lawsuit against public officials, and the subjective and partisan mentality of the judiciary are likely to produce impunity.
The UN Committee against Torture (CAT), authorised by the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment signed by Turkey also, is one of the international mechanisms working against torture and other types of ill treatment. Unfortunately, Turkey has been avoiding cooperating with those mechanisms, preventing them from launching investigations and studies in the country, and ignoring their critiques and suggestions. Turkey, having signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), enacted passed some laws such as Turkey Human Rights and Equality Institution Law no 6701, published on 20 April 2016. Nevertheless, this law complies neither with UN Paris Principles nor with the OPCAT. Also the institution is completely non-functional. With allegations of torture being so frequent nowadays, we demand that detention centres and prisons be opened to independent committees for intensive investigation.
In conclusion, we, the signatories below, feel great pain and concern for this situation, on the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention against Torture and 20th anniversary of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The authoritarian mindset itself, which has not internalized democracy and respect to human rights, is directly responsible for this figure. That has to be changed in no time. On the other hand, there are still some steps possibly to be taken even today. As we have stated for a while, that the 10-month state of emergency imposed upon the society should not be an arbitrary process but a lawful one, as both included in the Turkish Constitution and international norms. For that reason, the state of emergency must be limited to the principles of necessity and proportionality, temporary, under national and international judicial control, and lastly respectful to non-derogable rights. Those non-derogable rights include prohibition of torture. After all, the Article 2 of the UN Convention against Torture states that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. Hence, this statutory obligation must be fulfilled, and it is vital to lift this uncontrolled and arbitrary state of emergency, which has established an environment of torture.
We would like to remove torture from our homeland and the world forever. Torture contradicts humane values and existence and overshadows hopes for a better future. Until we achieve our goal, we will be on the side of whoever is subjected to torture in order to help them speak out and feel secure, whatever blackout and suppression they face. We will continue, within the law, to identify all torturers and their hierarchical structures, to document and report torture despite all judicial impunity shields.
Diyarbakır Bar Association
Diyarbakır Medical Chambers
Human Rights Association, Diyarbakır Branch-İHD
Human Rights Foundation of Turkey-Diyarbakir Office- TİHV