Turkeys Reforms

On August 2, the Turkish parliament abolished the death penalty and lifted restrictions on minority language education and broadcasting, including in the Kurdish language. However, the reform deliberately foreclosed legal challenge by Turkey's longest-serving political prisoners, Kurdish former parliamentary deputies Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doğan and Selim Sadak, whose unfair trial has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.

"We warmly welcome the courageous and principled measures this law contains," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division, "But we regret that parliament chose to seal the injustice inflicted on its former members, Zana, Dicle, Doğan and Sadak." The four have been serving 15-year sentences since 1994, when they were jailed under anti-terror legislation for legitimate political activity.

The haste with which the Turkish government drew up and passed the draft reflects the urgency it feels to demonstrate progress before the December 2002 European Union (E.U.) summit. Turkey hopes the summit will yield a date for it to begin membership negotiations with the European Union - the next step in the E.U. accession process. To gain membership in the European Union, all applicant states must guarantee "democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities."

The new law abolishes the death penalty for all peacetime offenses, replacing it with life imprisonment. There have been no judicial executions in Turkey since 1984, but abolition of the death penalty is nonetheless a major step forward. The military, influential in Turkish politics, carried out the majority of executions, following repeated coups since 1960. The removal of a punishment closely associated with the military's authoritarian hand suggests that the civilian government may be putting its relationship with the generals on a new footing.

"Much of what has passed as reform since the beginning of Turkey's candidacy for E.U. membership has been little more than cosmetic gestures," Andersen said, "but abolition of the death penalty is truly significant. Turkey has struck an important blow for the global effort to abolish the death penalty." The Nationalist Action Party-a government coalition partner-bitterly opposed the move, because among the 83 reprieved death row prisoners was Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), an armed illegal organizations responsible for the deaths of thousands of soldiers and civilians during a 15-year conflict in Turkey's southeast.

The new law also explicitly permits broadcasting and education in minority languages. Human Rights Watch cautioned that permission is, in both cases, hedged with qualifications that could be used to block effective implementation.

"We've seen reforms before that meant nothing in practice," Andersen said. "But this change reflects such a dramatic departure from previous policy that it could remove the taboo on minority languages and effect real change." (For more information on past reforms, see Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey on the web at http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/turkeyqa041902.htm.)

The measure does not specifically provide for Kurdish courses in state education. The law will, however, make it difficult for the State Security Court prosecutors to maintain their persecution of those campaigning for Kurdish as an optional university course. Over the past year, hundreds of students, teachers, and parents seeking Kurdish language courses have been detained, tortured, or prosecuted. Prosecutors claimed the PKK was behind the campaign, indicted the defendants for "supporting an armed organization," and demanded heavy prison sentences. Human Rights Watch said that prosecutors should now drop those charges and promptly release all those under arrest.

"Granting the right to education and broadcast in minority languages is the best possible sign that the Turkish government could have given of a new-found respect for social and intellectual diversity," said Andersen.

Human Rights Watch said the reforms betray a serious loss of nerve in one area. Under the new law, a Turkish citizen subject to a conviction that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found to contravene the Human Rights Convention can now force Turkish courts to review the original verdict. Unfortunately, a proviso denies this right to past applicants to the ECHR. This deliberately closes off the remedy to Kurdish former parliamentary deputies Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Doğan and Selim Sadak. In July 2001, the European Court of Human Rights ruled their trial had been unfair. In January 2002 the Council of Europe called on Turkey to order a fresh trial, but Turkey has taken no action. The proviso also withholds the right to review for several politicians who were stripped of their political rights following conviction for freedom of expression offenses and subsequently complained to the ECHR, including former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, former party leader Hasan Hüseyin Ceylan, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a current party leader struggling to obtain his right to stand for election.

The reform package included small changes to Article 159 of the Turkish Criminal Code, which provides prison sentences for insulting the state authorities, the Law on Associations and the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations, highly restrictive statutes, which deserve a thorough overhaul. It did not address the right to conscientious objection, the scores of ongoing prosecutions for non-violent expression, or the persistence of torture. (NM)