Survey: 'Situation of human rights in Kurdish regions no different from the 1990s'

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The Diyarbakır Bar Association and the Rawest Research company carried out a public opinion survey in the Kurdish-majority city on the occasion of December 10 Human Rights Week.

According to the survey carried out between November 27 and December 4 with an equal number of men and women respondents, 41 percent of the people of Diyarbakır don't trust Turkey's justice system.

The 1990s and today

When asked to rate Turkey at human rights in the 1990s and today, many respondents said there was no big difference in the two periods. The 1990s was a period marked with widespread human rights violations, including thousands of extrajudicial killings, in the country's predominantly Kurdish populated regions.

Among the respondents, 42.1 percent said human rights were not important at all in the 1990s and 38 percent said the situation is not different today.

When asked which groups suffered rights violations the most, 68.7 percent said "women" and 55 percent said "Kurds."

Those who violate human rights the most are the state (61.9 percent), men (45.9 percent), the police and the army, according to the people of Diyarbakır.

The mother tongue

Sixty-seven percent of the respondents agreed that not being able to receive education and public services in the mother tongue is a human rights violation.

While more than half of the respondents said they don't agree that the government can appoint "trustees" to municipalities and universities when necessary, 24 percent agreed with this statement.

Since the 2019 local elections, the government has replaced dozens of mayors from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) with "trustees," citing "terrorism-related" investigations against the mayors.

About a recent event where a shopkeeper in Van province was arrested for telling a politician that "This is Kurdistan," 70.4 percent of the respondents said it was a violation of rights while 9.7 percent said it wasn't a violation.

More than 60 percent of the respondents said Turkey'S withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty on combating violence against women, caused an increase in the cases of violence against women.

Also, 81.2 percent of the respondents said being obliged to recite the student oath was a rights violation.

Over 55 percent of the participants said the legal processes concerning the extrajudicial killings in the 1990s are carried out fairly.

"Rights violations are the same as the 1990s"

The survey openly revealed the violations caused by the failure to resolve the Kurdish question, Diyarbakır Bar Chair Nahit Eren told bianet.

"We saw in the survey that distrust of the judiciary was very high," he said. "Nearly 60 percent of the people do not trust [the judiciary]. In fact, this is a result reflecting the view of the Kurds and the Kurdish question."

"Also, it is thought that children suffer serious rights violations. Armored vehicle crashes are the most tangible example of this," he noted.

"The state violates rights the most"

"It's revealed that the violations of rights are seriously related  to the Kurdish issue. We asked for a comparison with the violations of rights in the 90s, and it is stated that the violations of rights are almost the same today. It shows saying that the government will not return to the '90s does not reflect the truth.

"We have also seen that the Kurdish public opinion does not lean towards the abandonment of the İstanbul Convention. The answers that the state and men cause rights violations the most show that it is a result of this."

"Women suffer violations the most"

"It is stated that women are the group that suffers rights violations the most. This does not only concern Kurdish women. It's the view of Turkey from Diyarbakır. It reflects that the problem originates from the state and state policies. Not only feminicides and violence against women but also [the lack of] equal representation is considered a rights violation." (RT/VK)