New Head Of The Ground Forces Worries Human Rights Defenders

The speech of Four-Star General Işık Koşaner, the newly promoted head of the Land Forces, receives the reaction of the human rights defenders. The cause of the reaction was Koşaner’s approach phrased as “If the terrorist activities are threatening the human rights, then there is need to reevaluate the balance between the freedoms and the precautions need to be taken."

While head of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TİHV) Yavuz Önen, one of those with whom bianet has talked about Koşaner’s unique approach, says, “This is one way of saying let us go back to security, not to freedoms”, head of Diyarbakır Bar Sezgin Tanrıkulu says, “The Armed Forces overlap with unlawfulness during their activities conducted in the name of fight against terrorism overlap with unlawfulness.” He adds that “Koşaner wishes to legalize this unlawfulness.” 

Tanrıkulu: Which law prevents what?

Tanrıkulu says, “Which law prevents what, they do not say. Which article is the problem? Is it that they do not want  the caught organization member receive a lawyer? There is no concrete example. This is an attempt to legalize the unlawfulness that comes with their activites…”

About the allegations of throwing people from the helicopters, which has just been brought up again, Tanrıkulu says, “As far as I know, the Gendarmerie has so far never investigated the allegations about them” and he describes Gen. Koşaner’s demand as an attempt to eliminate this possibility.

This discourse indicates that the freedoms will be restricted even more

Yavuz Önen interprets Koşaner’s approach as a search for a new channel: “Both the Turkish Armed Forces and the Police Force have been voicing these opinions since the improvements in personal rights in 2005. It worked and their powers were increased.”

Önen reminded that in 2008 alone there were 22 extrajudicial killings (“disobeying the stop warning” deaths, as phrased in the media).

“We are under war conditions and we witness that such violations are very common in regions where guns are being fired. This discourse really indicates that there will be a stricter policy in the future and the freedoms will be restricted even more.”

What did Koşaner say?

Some notes from Gen. Koşaner’s speech:

- These laws that are passed as if there is no terrorism in our country are simply inadequate in helping the situation. 

- The bills that will provide the authorities in certain regions with measures to be applied when needed and for predetermined time periods should be passed as soon as possible.

- Isolated cases are presented as if they represent the whole organization; this hurts the eminent members of our Gendarmerie organization. (NZ/EZÖ/TB)