Turkish Medical Association head detained in İstanbul

Şebnem Korur-Fincancı, the head of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) was detained this morning in Istanbul.

Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's office announced the detention.

The office had opened an investigation into Korur-Fincancı for "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" and "publicly degrading the Turkish Nation, the state of the Republic of Türkiye and its institutions" because of her comments in a media outlet about the allegations that Türkiye used chemical gases during its military operations against PKK in Iraq.

Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's office has also requested that the Central Committee members of the Turkish Medical Association should be suspended from their duties.

What happened?

Fırat News Agency (ANF) released a video clip of two PKK members allegedly exposed to chemical weapons on October 18 which was followed by reactions and calls for an independent investigation.

The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) issued a statement demanding that the claims should be investigated.

Selahattin Demirtaş, the imprisoned former co-chair of the HDP, also said the claims should be investigated.
"The parliament of Türkiye and the opposition cannot keep silent in the face of these images. Keeping silent means giving approval to a crime," he wrote on Twitter.

Commenting on the video in question for Medya Haber TV, Şebnem Korur-Fincancı, head of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), said, "I have examined the videos. Obviously, toxic gasses that directly [affect] the nervous system have been used."

Şebnem Korur Fincancı had later criticized Medya Haber TV for misrepresenting her remarks, explaining that what she meant was caling for an independent investigation

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli targeted Şebnem Korur Fincancı and TTB in their statements this week.

About Şebnem Korur-Fincancı

Prof. Dr. Şebnem Korur-Fincancı is a rights advocate and the Chair of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (TIHV). The Foundation has been involved in the documentation of the cases of torture, rehabilitation of its victims and provision of legal assistance to them.

Şebnem Korur Fincancı is also one of the founding members of the Forensic Doctors' Association and has played the major role in the development of the United Nations reference standards on the investigation and documentation of the cases of torture, the Istanbul Protocol.

She has conducted forensic investigations to expose torture in multiple countries and in 2014 she received the International Hrant Dink Award. She has also been one of the founders of the Turkish Penal Code Association.

Devoting her professional life to the investigation and documentation of torture as well as struggle against it, Korur Fincancı has become one of the milestones in Turkey in that regard. Preparing reports on cases of torture and writing on medical ethics in the 1990s, when torture was prevalent in Turkey, she was met with the oppression and preventions by the state.

In 1997, she became the Head of Forensic Medicine Department at İstanbul University. In 2004, she was dismissed from this post. In 2005, she was reinstated by the Administrative Court and as per the decision of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK).

Şebnem Korur Fincancı also participated in the Editors-in-Chief on Watch campaign that was launched in solidarity with the Özgür Gündem newspaper, which was closed as per a Statutory Decree. Korur Fincancı was arrested on June 20, 2016 for having participated in the campaign and was released on June 30, 2016.

(PE/VK)