HRW: Statutory Decrees in State of Emergency Facilitate Torture in Custody
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In its 47-page report, “A Blank Check: Turkey’s Post-Coup Suspension of Safeguards Against Torture, issued today (October 25), Human Rights Watch (HRW) has pointed out that the statutory decrees issued in the State of Emergency removed crucial safeguards in the wake of a failed coup attempt in July, 2016 and thus facilitate tortured and ill-treatment of individuals by police in custody.
The report aim at documenting “how the weakening of safeguards through decrees adopted under the state of emergency has negatively affected police detention conditions and the rights of detainees” by reference to “13 cases of alleged abuse, including stress positions, sleep deprivation, severe beatings, sexual abuse, and rape threats, since the coup attempt”.
Some highlights from the report are as follows:
"Removing safeguards allow law enforcement agencies to torture and mistreat detainees"
“By removing safeguards against torture, the Turkish government effectively wrote a blank check to law enforcement agencies to torture and mistreat detainees as they like,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The cases we have documented seem to indicate that some have done just that. Turkey’s government should reinstate these crucial safeguards now.”
"A provision in the emergency decrees absolves government officials of any responsibility for actions taken in the context of the decrees. And the authorities’ decision to postpone a visit to Turkey by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture casts serious doubt on the authorities’ commitment to prevent torture and ill-treatment.
Interviews with lawyers, human rights activists, medical personnel and former detainees
“Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 40 lawyers, human rights activists, former detainees, medical personnel, and forensic specialists.
“At least 241 police officers and citizens died and up to 2,000 were injured when elements of the military attempted a coup d’état against the elected government on July 15-16. Human Rights Watch interviewed several people injured while resisting the coup.
“Shortly after the failed coup, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency, a step it is entitled to take in exceptional circumstances. The government also has the right – and even the obligation – to protect the public, investigate crimes committed during the attempted coup, including murder and bodily harm, and to hold those responsible to account.
“However, a state of emergency does not give the government carte blanche to suspend rights, Human Rights Watch said. The prohibition of torture in international law is absolute and cannot be suspended even in times of war or national emergency. Yet the emergency decrees remove crucial safeguards that protect detainees from ill-treatment and torture.
“The emergency decrees extend the maximum length of police detention without judicial review from four to 30 days, deny detainees access to lawyers for up to five days, and restrict detainees’ choice of lawyer and their right to confidential conversations with their lawyers.
“In several cases Human Rights Watch documented, law enforcement officials and agents violated these rights to an extent exceeding even the permissive leeway granted under the emergency decrees.
“‘The police chief who detained me … began to slap me in the face and eyes’, one person who was detained said in a statement to a prosecutor. ’They beat me on the soles of my feet, on my stomach, then squeezed my testicles, saying things like they’d castrate me’. He went on to describe a series of beatings on other parts of his body.
“Law enforcement officers have applied these provisions not only to those accused of involvement with the coup attempt, but also to detainees accused of links with armed Kurdish and leftist groups, also depriving them of important safeguards against ill-treatment and unfair prosecution.
“All of this has taken place in a pervasive climate of fear in which lawyers, detainees, human rights activists, medical personnel, and forensic specialists told Human Rights Watch they worried that they would be next in the government’s extensive purge of alleged coup supporters. These fears are not unfounded. For example, the authorities have placed more than 200 lawyers in pretrial detention on suspicion of involvement in the coup attempt, according to the Union of Turkish Bar Associations”.
“Lawyers, medical personnel, recently released detainees, and family members of detainees described to Human Rights Watch 13 cases of torture and ill-treatment after the coup attempt, with varying degrees of severity. The cases include allegations of methods ranging from stress positions and sleep deprivation to severe beating, sexual abuse, and rape threats. In one incident, the allegations concerned multiple detainees. Human Rights Watch withheld most names of detainees and lawyers for their own safety because they had serious concerns about possible repercussions”.
"Authorities failed to respond to torture allegations"
“Turkish government officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, declared after the coup attempt that they had zero tolerance for torture. However, the authorities have failed to respond appropriately to recent torture allegations, instead often calling those making the allegations biased and accusing them of being coup supporters or of making propaganda for the Gülen movement, headed by a former government ally who is in self-exile in the United States, which the government accuses of responsibility for the coup.
“Mehmet Metiner, the ruling party member of parliament who is head of the parliamentary sub-committee on prisons, recently stated that the commission would not investigate allegations of torture of alleged Gülen supporters in prisons. Widespread and systematic torture has been a longstanding problem in Turkey. But reports of torture and ill-treatment in police custody decreased significantly from 2002 to mid-2015, in part because of efforts to improve safeguards including limited custody periods, tighter procedures for recording detention and taking detainees’ statements, access to legal counsel early during police detention, and obligatory and regular medical examinations of detainees.
“‘Torture is like a contagious disease – once it starts it will spread; it is painful to see the reversal taking place now’, a lawyer detained following the coup attempt along with people he believed had been tortured told Human Rights Watch.
“‘It would be tragic if two hastily passed emergency decrees end up undermining the progress Turkey made to combat torture’, Williamson said. ‘The authorities should immediately rescind the most damaging provisions and investigate compelling allegations of torture and ill-treatment in police custody and any other place of detention’”.
Recommendations to the Government of Turkey
HRW in its report recommends Turkey to
*Immediately rescind the provisions of the emergency decrees that enable torture and ill-treatment and are inconsistent with the state’s fundamental obligations under international law. In particular:
-Rescind the extension of police detention without judicial overview to 30 days;
-Rescind the restriction on access to lawyer for up to five days;
-Rescind the restriction on confidential communication between lawyers and detainees;
-Lift the extensive restrictions on the right to choose a lawyer; any denial of the right to a lawyer of the detainees’ choosing should only be made by a judge providing substantiated reasons as to why the chosen lawyer cannot act as legal representative;
-Rescind the protection of government officials from accountability when their actions are deemed to have been in the discharge of duties carried out in the context of the decrees.
*Give detainees and lawyers immediate access to all medical examination reports and other information related to potential ill-treatment and torture and permit an examination by an independent doctor should the detainee or his or her lawyer request it;
*Ensure that law enforcement agents do not interfere with medical examinations of detainees. Pursue disciplinary action against those who do;
*Grant access to all police and gendarmerie detention centers and prison facilities for independent monitors, including the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, bar association representatives, representatives of non-government human rights organizations, lawyers, and medical professionals;
*Investigate promptly and impartially all allegations of torture or ill-treatment by security or law enforcement officials of any rank, and prosecute in line with international standards, any official found responsible for ordering, carrying out, or acquiescing in torture or ill-treatment;
*Ensure that prosecutors investigate the responsibility of commanding officers where law enforcement officials are alleged to have perpetrated serious abuses. Commanding officers who know or should have known of such acts, and who fail to take action to prevent and punish them, should be included in prosecutors’ investigations and, where appropriate, face sanctions;
*Ensure that effective and meaningful disciplinary sanctions are imposed on law enforcement officials who commit abuses;
*Suspend from active duty officers under investigation for torture or ill-treatment and ensure their dismissal if convicted;
*Allow the immediate publication of the conclusions and findings of the September 2016 ad hoc visit of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
(AS/DG)
Click here to read the full report