TITLE: TURKEY HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994 AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DATE: FEBRUARY 1995 TURKEY Turkey is a constitutional republic with a multiparty Parliament (the Grand National Assembly) which elects the President. Suleyman Demirel was elected President in 1993, and Tansu Ciller, chairperson of the center-right True Path Party (DYP), became Turkey's first female Prime Minister in the same year. For the past decade, Turkey has engaged in armed conflict with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose stated goal is the creation of a separate state of Kurdistan in southeastern Turkey. A state of emergency, declared in 1987, continued in 10 southeastern provinces where the Government faces substantial terrorist violence from the PKK (see Section 1.g.). A regional governor retains authority over those 10 provinces, as well as 3 adjacent ones. A state of emergency allows the civilian governor to exercise certain quasi-martial law powers, including restrictions on the press and removal from the area of persons whose activities are deemed hostile to public order. The state of emergency decree was most recently renewed in November 1994. The Turkish National Police (TNP) are charged with maintaining public order in the cities, a responsibility which the Jandarma (gendarmerie) carries out in the countryside. In 1994 the regular Turkish armed forces, mainly the army, took on a primary role in combatting the PKK in the state of emergency region and thus assumed a greater internal security function than in previous years. Despite the Ciller Government's pledge in 1993 to end torture and to establish a state of law based on respect for human rights, torture and excessive use of force by security personnel persisted throughout 1994. Turkey has a mixed economy in which state enterprises account for nearly 40 percent of the manufacturing sector. A series of economic crises culminated in the announcement on April 5 of a major economic reform program, including the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Although the balance of payments improved and inflation slowed, prices still increased over 100 percent in 1994. The size of the state bureaucracy, the budget deficit, the inadequate tax system, and the inefficient state sector block economic growth. The conflict in the southeast continued to be a major drain on the economy. The human rights situation in Turkey worsened significantly in 1994. The police and security forces often employed torture during periods of incommunicado detention and interrogation, and the security forces continued to use excessive force against noncombatants. PKK terrorists murdered noncombatants, targeting village officials and teachers and also committing random murders in their effort to intimidate the populace. Parliament lifted the immunity of pro-Kurdish Democracy Party (DEP) members of Parliament (M.P.'s), opening the way for indictment and prosecution of five DEP M.P.'s and one independent, largely for the expression of views during their tenure as M.P.'s. The Constitutional Court subsequently closed the DEP, allowing two other M.P.'s to be prosecuted. The trial concluded on December 8 with convictions for disseminating separatist propaganda and for supporting or being a member of an armed band, which resulted in sentences ranging from 3 years and 6 months (suspended) to 15 years. Various agencies of the Government continued to harass, intimidate, indict, and imprison human rights monitors, journalists, lawyers, and professors for ideas which they expressed in public forums. Disappearances and mystery murder cases continued at a high rate in the southeast. The PKK and the radical Islamic Hizbullah (not related to the Lebanese Hizbullah) appear responsible in some cases. In other cases, however, the evidence implicated government security forces. In many human rights cases, the targets of abuse were ethnic Kurds or their supporters. Moreover, the Government infrequently prosecutes police or security officers for extrajudicial killings, torture, and other abuses; in the cases which produce a conviction, lenient sentences were usually given. The resulting climate of impunity that has been created probably remains the single largest obstacle to reducing unlawful killing, torture, and other human rights abuses. The Government used the 1991 Anti-Terror Law, with its broad and ambiguous definition of terrorism, to detain both alleged terrorists and a broad range of people on the charge that their acts, words, or ideas promote separatism and "threaten the indivisible unity of the State." In September the Government formed a Committee on Freedom of Thought to examine changes to the Anti-Terror Law and other laws that severely restrict freedom of expression. By mid-October the Committee had made recommendations to Parliament which, if enacted and properly implemented, could significantly expand freedom of expression. However, at year's end, Parliament had not enacted these changes. While the Criminal Trials Procedure Law (CMUK), passed in November 1992, has improved attorney access for those charged with common crimes, certain of its provisions, such as early attorney access, do not apply to those detained under the Anti-Terror Law or within the state of emergency region. In 1993 Parliament annulled the article of the Constitution under which the Government had a monopoly on radio and television broadcasting, and in April 1994 passed regulatory legislation for the legal operation of private broadcasting. RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from: a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing Political murders and extrajudicial killings attributed to Government authorities and terrorist groups continued at the relatively high 1993 rates. Government authorities were responsible for the deaths of detainees in official custody; suspects in houses raided by security forces; and other types of civilian deaths in the southeast. The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRF), a Turkish nongovernmental organization which documents the human rights situation, claimed that government security forces were responsible for 33 extrajudicial killings in the first 10 months of 1994. A substantial number of "mystery killings," in which the assailant's identity was unknown, also occurred. Human rights organizations also maintain that security forces were complicit in a number of these "mystery killings." The Government maintains that the Hizbullah, an Islamic terrorist group, carried out 107 "mystery killings" in the first 9 months of 1994. The number of "mystery killings" remained high during the first 10 months of 1994 and, according to the HRF, 316 civilians were assassinated by unknown attackers, mostly in the east and southeast of the country. Many were leaders or prominent members of the Kurdish community, physicians, human rights monitors, local politicians, and members of the Democracy Party (DEP). In the past 2 years, at least 26 members of the DEP and its successor, the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), have been murdered. A parliamentary committee, which commenced its investigation in 1993, continued to investigate mystery murders which have occurred since 1970, but had issued no report by year's end. The HRF reported that 18 persons died under suspicious circumstances while in official custody in the first 9 months of 1994, some as a result of torture. Of these, officials claimed that at least five committed suicide, a claim they have made frequently in past cases of deaths in custody. In one such case, Can Demirag, detained by Istanbul police in connection with a murder, was found dead on August 23 in his cell in the Kadikoy security directorate where he was being interrogated. Police claimed Demirag had committed suicide by hanging himself with a sheet on the iron grating of the ventilation window in the cell; the Istanbul prosecutor's office opened an investigation into his death, but by year's end had not released any information. By law, authorities are obliged to investigate all deaths in custody, but prosecutions of security force members for such deaths are rare. In one case, however, in September, the Istanbul Beyoglu district prosecutor's office brought murder charges against police officer Abdullah Bozkurt on the grounds that in March he shot to death university student Vedat Han Gulsenoglu in the Istanbul Kasimpasa district police station. The prosecution requested a 30-year sentence for murder. In the southeast there were a number of murders of persons who, according to the authorities, had been released or were not in custody, but whose families were certain they were being held. For example, the Diyarbakir State Security Court (SSC) took Necati Aydin into custody in March. On April 4, the judge signed a release for Aydin, but he never emerged to meet his waiting family. On April 9, the bodies of Aydin and a friend, Mehmet Ay, were found buried to their necks near a river along the Diyarbakir/Silvan road. The Government states that the Diyarbakir Third State Security Court released Aydin and Ay on their own recognizance, and that they later turned up dead. In April, five village guards (a government-employed paramilitary force in the southeast) abducted Diyarbakir tradesman Serif Avsar in broad daylight. Avsar's family followed them to a Jandarma station, yet authorities denied they were holding Avsar. He was found dead on May 7. The village guards and an informant are on trial for Avsar's murder. The Government maintains the murder resulted from an interclan dispute. Regarding other ongoing cases, in the death in detention of Vakkas Dost, the policeman Nurettin Ozturk is still at large, and the trial is continuing. The trial in the case of Yucel Ozen in continuing. The trial of the 11 police officers in the Basalak case is ongoing. Human rights groups and parliamentarians continued to accuse Turkish security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings and using excessive force during raids on alleged terrorist safe houses rather than trying to arrest the occupants. During the first 10 months of 1994, 27 people died in such raids, according to human rights groups. In Istanbul, two trials were started against police who had participated in two Dev Sol (Devrimci Sol, a Marxist terrorist group) safe house raids in November 1993 in which three persons died. In another case stemming from a May 1991 safe house raid in Istanbul in which 2 died, 12 security officers were acquitted. In an April 1993 shoot-out in Tunceli, 12 Dev Sol militants were killed. No investigation was initiated; according to security forces, an investigation was unnecessary since it was an armed clash. Prominent credible human rights organizations, Kurdish leaders, and local Kurds asserted that the Government acquiesces in, or even carries out, the murders of civilians. Government officials appeared to be investigating more of the reported murders than in past years. Some victims had previously been detained, abused, or threatened by security forces. Human rights groups reported the widespread and credible belief that a counterguerrilla group associated with the security forces had carried out at least some "mystery killings." The Government maintains that two factions of the Hizbullah committed most "mystery killings." In June the Diyarbakir SSC prosecutor's office launched the first trial against 35 members of Hizbullah's Menzil faction, claiming that the defendants were responsible for 39 armed attacks, resulting in 25 deaths and 32 injuries. A second trial against members of Hizbullah's Ilim faction began at the Diyarbakir SSC in July. On September 4, 1993, unknown persons fatally shot Mehmet Sincar, a DEP member of Parliament (MP) from Mardin, in the city center of Batman. Twelve persons were arrested in connection with the murder, and the case is currently being tried. Sincar's widow has accused government forces of committing the murder and has brought the case before the European Human Rights Commission. Four members of the HADEP, successor party to the banned DEP (see Section 2.b.), were assassinated in the southeast during September. No evidence as to the identity of the perpetrators has been brought to light, and no arrests were made in these cases. Faik Candan, former Ankara provincial Chairman of DEP predecessor HEP, was found dead on December 14, shot four times in the head, neck, and chest, according to press reports. In contrast to 1993, there were no assassinations of journalists in 1994, but at least one journalist disappeared (see Section 1.b.). A distributor of the pro-PKK newspaper Ozgur Ulke was killed in the explosion that ripped through the paper's Istanbul building on the night of December 3. Moreover, as of October, none of the five murders of journalists committed in 1993, nor those previously, had been solved. Although terrorists carried out political murders primarily in rural southeast Anatolia, they also launched several deadly attacks during 1994 in urban areas. On January 14, bombs killed three on intercity buses in central Turkey, and on February 12, an explosion at Istanbul's Tuzla train station killed 5 cadets and wounded 26. The PKK claimed responsibility for the Tuzla incident, but did not publicly claim responsibility for the bus explosion, although most people believe it was responsible. Killings perpetrated by the PKK included those of state officials (Jandarma, local mayors, imams, and schoolteachers), state-paid paramilitary village guards and their family members, young villagers who refuse to be recruited, and PKK guerrillas-turned-informants. On January 1, the PKK intercepted two buses on the Diyabakir-Elazig highway, took eight people into a field and shot them. On July 30, the PKK killed seven village guards in an attack on Konalga village in Van province. The PKK publicly claimed to have killed "179 village guards, including a leading village guard and 32 of his relatives" and "66 collaborators, agents, counterguerrilla organization members, (and) police officials," during the month of June. Teachers continued to be a main target of terrorist activities. During the year the PKK killed 20 teachers. b. Disappearance Disappearances continued in 1994, while most of those reported in 1993 and earlier remained unsolved. Some disappeared after witnesses reported that security forces had taken them into custody. In March, Nazim Babaoglu, Urfa correspondent for the pro-Kurdish daily, Ozgur Gundem, disappeared. The Government maintains that Abdulvahap Timurtas, who disappeared in August 1993 in Yenikoy village, Sirnak province, was not taken into custody, and that a village by that name does not exist. His father accuses the security forces of abducting him. His brother Tevfik Timurtas died under torture on January 5, 1991, in Cizre, according to the HRF. The Government says it received 28 claims of missing relatives in the first 9 months of 1994. The Government, human rights organizations, and the media report that the PKK routinely kidnaps young men or threatens their families as part of its recruiting. PKK terrorists continued their abductions of local villagers, teachers, journalists, and officials in the southeast. For example, on January 26 the PKK kidnaped two journalists and held them for 4 months. The PKK again kidnaped two foreign tourists during the summer and eventually released them unharmed. c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Despite the Constitution's ban on torture, Turkey's accession to the U.N. and European Conventions Against Torture, and public pledges of successive governments to end torture, the practice continued. Human rights attorneys and physicians who treat victims of torture state that most persons charged with, or suspected of, political crimes usually suffer some torture during periods of incommunicado detention in police stations and Jandarma headquarters before they are brought before a court. The HRF and private attorneys reported that there was no indication of either the amelioration of treatment of those charged under the Anti-Terror Law or an overall decrease in the incidence of torture in 1994. In 1994 women again charged sexual abuses while under official detention by security officials. Although the implementation of the CMUK on December 1, 1992, facilitated more immediate attorney access to those arrested for common crimes, its provisions of immediate attorney access do not apply to those detained in the state of emergency region nor to those detained under the Anti-Terror Law. Some attorneys in the southeast reported that some common criminals are booked on political charges, thereby depriving them of access to or by an attorney. The CMUK's allowable, maximum prearraignment detention periods still exceed Council of Europe maximums. Human rights observers report that the system whereby the arresting police officer is also responsible for interrogating the suspect is conducive to torture because the officer seeks to obtain a confession that would justify the arrest. According to those familiar with Turkish police operations, in petty criminal cases, the arresting officer is responsible for following up on the case, whereas in major cases such as murder and political or terrorism-related crimes, "desks" responsible for the area in question are responsible for the interrogation. Commonly employed methods of torture reported by the Human Rights Foundation's Torture Treatment Centers include: high-pressure cold water hoses, electric shocks, beating on the soles of the feet, beating of the genitalia, hanging by the arms, blindfolding, sleep deprivation, deprivation of clothing, systematic beatings, and vaginal and anal rape with truncheons and, in some instances, gun barrels. In southern Turkey, a security official boasted of having deprived a suspect of sleep for 6 days to obtain a confession. In a case in Istanbul in July, Yelda Ozcan, a former representative of the HRF, stated to several human rights organizations that a chief commissioner at the Beyoglu security directorate had stripped and beaten her. She obtained a medical report and lodged an official complaint against the commissioner. In another case, in April a 17-year-old female student stated she had been beaten, hosed with pressurized water, and raped with a truncheon by police at Istanbul's Bahcelievler station, then released without charges having been filed. Although the Government asserted that medical examinations occur once during detention and a second time before either arraignment or release, former detainees asserted that some medical examinations took place too long after the event to reveal any definitive findings. According to the HRF, practice varies widely: In some cases proper examinations are conducted; in others, doctors sign papers handed to them; some examinations are cursory, some are done in the presence of police officials, and some doctors are at times under pressure to submit false or misleading medical certificates, denying evidence of torture. Credible sources in the human rights and legal communities estimate that judicial authorities investigate only about one-half of the formal complaints involving torture and prosecute only a small fraction of those. Under the Anti-Terror Law, officials accused of torture or other mistreatment may continue to work while under investigation and, if convicted, may only be suspended. Special provincial administrative boards, rather than regular courts, decide whether to prosecute in such cases, and suspects' legal fees are paid by their employing agencies. Under the state of emergency, any lawsuit directed at government authorities must be approved by the regional governor. Because approval is rare, this blocks legal pursuit of torture allegations. Under the Administrative Adjudication Law, an administrative investigation into alleged torture cases is conducted under the civil service adjudication law to determine if there is enough evidence to bring a law enforcement officer to trial. Under the CMUK, while prosecutors are empowered to initiate investigations of police officers or Jandarma suspected of torturing or maltreating suspects, in cases where township security directors or Jandarma commanders are accused of torture, the prosecutor must obtain permission to initiate an investigation from the Ministry of Justice because these officials are deemed to have a status equal to that of judges. According to the Government, in the first 9 months of 1994, prosecutors considered 963 complaints of torture or maltreatment. Of those, 314 cases were opened, 355 were in preparation, 187 were dropped, in 25 cases the court decided it did not have the authority to pursue the case, and in 47 cases the court referred the case to another court. There were 11 convictions, 22 acquittals; in one case the complaint was withdrawn. Most of these cases were in Istanbul and Ankara; few were in the southeast. In the few instances in which law enforcement officers are convicted of torture, sentences tend to be light. In July Ekrem Guner, a noncommissioned officer, was convicted of torturing two persons in Ordu in 1989, sentenced to 2 years in prison, suspended from duty for 5 months and 15 days, and fined TL 375,000 (roughly $12). In July the Ankara administrative court ordered the Interior Ministry to pay Mediha Curabaz TL 10 million (roughly $300) in compensation for torture she sustained in August 1991 by the Adana police. The Adana provincial administrative commission had refused to try the police officers involved on charges of rape and torture, despite a medical report which confirmed the charge of rape. The trial of six security officers accused of torturing Baki Erdogan (who died in custody) in Soke district of Aydin province in August 1993 began in May and was continuing at year's end. In April the torture conviction of two officers and two noncommissioned officers in the 1985 torture and death of schoolteacher Siddik Bilgin was overturned on appeal, and the officers were acquitted on retrial.. The case of Nazli Top, a nurse (pregnant at the time) who alleged she was tortured and raped with a truncheon in April 1992 before police released her without charge, came to trial in December 1993. The trial continues. As Turkey recognizes the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights, Turkish citizens may file applications alleging violations of the European Convention on Human Rights with the Commission. Some 250 cases are currently before the Commission. In February the Government promised the Commission to pay compensation to the villagers of Yesilyurt in Cizre province whom Jandarma troops forced to eat human excrement in January 1989. A total of 300,000 French francs in compensation is to be paid. In January authorities sent a Prime Ministerial circular to the Ministries of Justice, Interior, and Foreign Affairs, directing that police prepare monthly reports on the incidence of ill- treatment and torture and ensure that medical examinations are carried out carefully to provide accurate forensic evidence. While statistics generally have been submitted as required, there is no evidence that the reporting requirement has had any effect on the incidence of torture. As of September, 4,149 applications claiming torture, maltreatment, or arbitrary detention had been filed with the parliamentary Human Rights Commission, since its September 1991 inception. In each case, the Commission had written to the offices of the public prosecutor, the governor's office, and the security directorate general, and there is no indication that these communications have had any effect or that the Commission has followed up on these cases. The HRF's torture rehabilitation centers in Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul reported that, within the first 6 months of 1994, they had received a total of 196 applications for treatment. Police continue to force women in custody and others to undergo virginity testing even though the state minister in charge of women's affairs condemned the practice in 1992. The tests are imposed particularly on women who file a criminal complaint alleging a sexual crime. Although legally only a court or a prosecutor may order them, police continue to impose the tests to on female detainees. Though women may refuse the exams, they are rarely informed of that right. Prison conditions remained another problem area in 1994. As recently as early November, the Justice Ministry announced plans to build new prisons and upgrade old ones to deal with the increase in the number of inmates convicted of terrorist crimes. The refurbished Eskisehir Prison and four others were to reopen by the end of the year. As in 1993, groups of inmates carried out hunger strikes to protest poor conditions and their treatment by prison guards, and one inmate was killed and several injured in an October riot at Diyarbakir Security Prison. The Government promised prison reform in 1993, but at the end of 1994 Parliament had not enacted it. Torture in prisons has decreased in the last few years, but continues to occur. d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile In order to take a person into custody, a prosecutor must issue a detention order, except in limited circumstances such as when a person is caught in the act of committing a crime. The detention period for those charged with common, individual crimes is 24 hours. Those detained for common, collective crimes may be held for 4 days, and the detention period may be extended for an additional 4 days. Under the CMUK, suspects are entitled to immediate access to an attorney and may meet and confer with the attorney at any time. In practice, this access continued to improve for detainees charged with common crimes. Persons detained for individual crimes which fall under the Anti-Terror Law must be brought before a judge within 48 hours, while those charged with crimes of a collective, political, or conspiratorial nature may be detained for up to 15 days in most of the country and up to 30 days in the 10 southeastern provinces under a state of emergency. There is no guaranteed attorney access under law for persons whose cases fall under the jurisdiction of the state security courts; these include those charged with smuggling and with crimes under the Anti-Terror Law. Attorneys and human rights organizations affirm that this lack of access is a major factor in the continuing, widespread use of torture by police and security forces. The decision concerning access to counsel in such cases is left to the independent prosecutor, who generally denies access, usually with the explanation that it would prejudice an ongoing investigation. The Justice and Interior Ministries generally have not intervened in prosecutors' decisions or police actions denying access to counsel. Although the Constitution specifies the right of detainees to request speedy arraignment and trial, judges have ordered a significant number of persons detained indefinitely, sometimes for years. While many cases involved persons accused of violent crimes, it is not uncommon for those accused of nonviolent political crimes to be kept in custody until the conclusion of their trials. By law, a detainee's next of kin must be notified "in the shortest time" after arrest. Once formally charged by the prosecutor, a detainee is arraigned by a judge and allowed to retain a lawyer. After arraignment, the judge may release the accused upon receipt of an appropriate guarantee, such as bail, or order him detained if the court determines that he is likely to flee the jurisdiction or destroy evidence. Authorities detained large numbers of people on several occasions in 1994, including the detention in February of 100 people at the funeral of Cengiz Arguc, a Communist militant, in Adana (all but 5 were released within a day); and the detention during Nevroz (Kurdish New Year) of 200 persons in Diyarbakir after a celebrant reportedly shot at a police car. In most such cases, the majority of detainees are subsequently released without charges being filed; many have reported being tortured during such detentions. In the southeast there were several roundups of ethnic Kurds in the wake of a crime. For example, after 5 PKK militants killed 1 policeman and wounded 5 near Igdir in April, police reportedly captured the 5 militants and claimed that "175 PKK supporters" were captured in the ensuing security operations.