25 February 1997       Doc. 7769

ADOC7769

1403-13/2/97-5-E

MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION

on the situation in Turkey relating to domestic unrest,

the protection of human rights and democratic freedoms

presented by Mr BRUNETTI and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

1.       The Assembly deplores the fact that no substantial progress was made in Turkey during 1996 towards beginning talks to find a peaceful and political solution to the current conflict in eastern Turkey populated by the Kurds, and to remove emergency legislation, administration and judicial practices, and fully guarantee human rights which are protected by current international conventions.

2.       The year-end 1996 data published by the Turkish Association for Human Rights (IHD) — over ten of whose activists have been murdered since 1991 according to Amnesty International — reveal a situation that remains dramatic: 20 434 cases of preventive detention (which may be extended up to fifteen days, and thirty days in eastern Turkey, without any legal defence), 2 071 cases of imprisonment, 194 cases of persons who have "disappeared", 78 persons murdered by persons unknown, 119 civilians killed and 133 wounded in attacks by military or para-military groups, 346 persons alleging torture during detention, 190 cases of death by torture or "extra-judicial execution", 68 villages forcibly evacuated or burnt down, 109 localities shelled, 195 publications confiscated, 132 associations, trade unions or press offices closed down, and 140 persons imprisoned for conscientious objection.

3.       Turkey has not yet ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, whose enforcement would make it necessary to revise the Constitution and the Turkish Penal Code, with particular reference to the civil, cultural, linguistic and political rights of minorities.

4.       The 1996 Amnesty International Report denounced serious and continuing violations of the conventions that Turkey has already ratified (the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ratified in 1954, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1995; the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1988; the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, 1967; the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment).

5.       With specific regard to torture, following the discovery of instruments of torture in 1992 in the general headquarters in Ankara by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture of the Council of Europe (ECPT) and in the wake of assurances given by Turkey at the time, fresh evidence that the practice of torture was continuing was found by ECPT in 1996, and the Danish Government conducted an inquiry on the basis of evidence of torture against a Danish citizen of Turkish origin while in detention, while the European Court of Justice, before which hundreds of claims are pending regarding torture practised against Turkish citizens or their families or survivors, has handed down two judgments against Turkish Government.

6.       The annual Amnesty International report mentioned earlier concluded by requesting the international community to urge the Turkish Government to promote and protect human rights, and to ensure that no arms supplied to Turkey are used to commit human rights violations. Its requests to the Turkish Government include abolishing the practice of detaining prisoners incommunicado , preventing and investigating cases of disappearances and extra-judicial executions, freeing prisoners of conscience, reforming or repealing the Anti-Terrorism Act, controlling the extra-territorial operations of the militia known as the "Village Guards", abolishing the impunity enjoyed by members of the security forces responsible for violating human rights, preventing refugees from being forcibly repatriated, and abolishing the death penalty.

7.       Under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and particularly Section 8, 185 writers, publishers and artists (according to Amnesty International, which defines them as constituting most of the Turkish intellectual and artistic elite) have been brought to trial; the celebrated novelist Yasar Kemal seems to have preferred voluntary exile after a series of arrests and convictions, and thousands of people have been imprisoned for having used weapons that were no more violent than a pen or a microphone (according to the Amnesty International report).

8.       In particular, the rounding-up by the police of almost 200 young men and their forcible recruitment as "village guards", which has been ascertained by delegations of the Turkish Association for Human Rights and the Italian Parliament and other associations, are evidence of continuing collaboration between regular soldiers and the para-military militia. These have been defined by a Turkish parliamentary committee as "an investment in social discord", and at the present time they are under investigation for the links which are now emerging with the international illicit trafficking in drugs, armaments and military material, including nuclear materials, and in illegal immigrants and refugees.

9.       It continues to be impossible for the Kurdish people and other minorities to have their own democratic political representatives — which are prohibited by law as such — and the only legal party which enjoys the consensus of the majority of the Kurdish people, Hadep, has been on trial for the past seven months, represented by the whole of its top officials, with fourteen leaders in prison, including the General Secretary Murat Bozlak. The evidence against the defendants was subsequently acquired by the police from witnesses in detention, who were not permitted to be questioned in court even when they intended to withdraw their earlier statements and complained of torture, as various delegations of the Associazione italiana giuristi democratici and Coordinamento opratrici del diritto delegations have been able to ascertain on various occasions.

10.       One particularly serious matter is the plight of the 15 000 refugees that have sought haven in Iraq in the Artrush camp, whom the Turkish Government is seeking to repatriate, guaranteeing their impunity, while this assurance is contradicted by the Minister of the Interior who has defined the camp as "a terrorist hideout", and the area around the camp has been shelled in evident reprisal against the decision of the UNHCR to place the camp under United Nations protection, in view of the refusal of the refugees to return home.

11.       No less serious is the plight of the several million internal refugees from about 3 000 villages that have been destroyed or burnt down (IHD data) now living in shanty-towns on the outskirts of every Turkish town, generally without any civil or political rights as a result of their refusal to register as residents of the towns in which they are forced to live.

12.       The very serious incident of the beating to death of eleven political prisoners in Diyarbakir Prison on 24 September 1996 and the subsequent paradoxical prosecution of the dead prisoners and the injured survivors before the Security Court of the state of Diyarbakir on 23 January 1997 are proof of the persistence of extremely serious violations of fundamental rights in prisons. That this is in breach of the commitments undertaken following the hunger strike by thousands of prisoners, and the solitary confinement of prisoners — including internationally well-known people such as the Sakharov Peace Prize-winner and former DEP parliamentarian, Layla Zana — is demonstrated by the curt refusal by the Turkish Minister of Justice to permit a delegation of women lawyers to confer the honorary citizenship granted by the Rome City Council on Layla Zana, and subsequently by an Italian parliamentary delegation.

13.       The Turkish Commission of Inquiry into the so-called "Susurluk incident" is finding serious evidence of the relationship between violations of human rights, formal war and informal war in eastern Turkey and unlawful trafficking in Turkey and in Europe, under the protection — according to the Frankfurt Tribunal, the British Home Office and Interpol — of members of the police and/or the Turkish Government itself.

14.       The second unilateral cease-fire announced by the PKK which lasted for over ten months expired in 1996 without any sign from the Turkish Goverment of the desire to commence dialogue or negotiations for the peaceful and political settlement of the conflict, despite reiterated statements by the Kurdish party that it did not wish to challenge the integrity of the Turkish state. Indeed, the Turkish Government refused to receive the prisoners of war subsequently handed over by the PKK to a Turkish humanitarian delegation, and at the beginning of 1997 declared that it intended to put and end to the conflict before the end of the year using military means.

15.       On the basis of all these considerations, and recalling all the previous reports, determinations and resolutions on the same subject by the Council of Europe, its committees and the European Parliament, the Assembly calls on the Turkish Government to respect and guarantee human rights, to repeal or amend the laws, including constitutional laws, which breach international law and conventions, to protect and guarantee the cultural, linguistic and civil rights of all minorities, and in particular the Kurdish minority, to repeal the emergency laws and administrative practices, to free political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, to put an end to every kind of torture and extra-judicial detention, to scrupulously monitor the conduct of the Turkish military and para-military forces in relation to human rights, to ascertain whether sectors of the civil service or agencies in any way linked to the government are involved in unlawful trafficking or have any possible connections with large-scale organised crime.

16.       The Assembly trusts that a dialogue will begin to bring about a political and peaceful solution to the current conflict in Turkey, involving all the parties and giving particular emphasis to the Turkish and Kurdish organised civilians, and commits the European Union to convening a peace conference in conjunction with and under the auspices of the United Nations, which will also take account of any positive results from the "International meeting for peace in Turkey" convened by a large number of Italian civil groups and associations, which will be attended by numerous Turkish and Kurdish representatives of all persuasions, in Rome in mid-March 1997.

17.       The Assembly links the confirmation of agreements between the European Union and Turkey on customs and trade issues and any other kind of progress that it is hoped to make in bringing Turkey into full membership of the European Union, with progress by the Turkish Government in the direction indicated above.

Signed: 1

Brunetti, Italy, UEL

Cangemi, Italy, UEL

Lauricella, Italy, SOC

Corrao, Italy, SOC

Leoni, Italy, SOC

Besostri, Italy,SOC

Pozza Tasca, Italy, LDR

Diana, Italy, EPP

Bernardini, San Marino, SOC

Polenta, Italy, EPP

Korakas, Greece, UEL

1 ¹       SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP: Group of the European People's Party

      EDG: European Democratic Group

      LDR: Liberal, Democratic and Reformers Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: Not registered