ABD DI$i$leri BakanlIGI'nIn, TR'de

[newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl]

From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: ABD DI$i$leri BakanlIGI'nIn, TR'de Insan HaklarI Raporu, 2


RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from:

a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

Political murders and extrajudicial killings attributed to
Government authorities and terrorist groups continued at the
relatively high 1993 rates.  Government authorities were
responsible for the deaths of detainees in official custody;
suspects in houses raided by security forces; and other types
of civilian deaths in the southeast.  The Human Rights
Foundation of Turkey (HRF), a Turkish nongovernmental
organization which documents the human rights situation,
claimed that government security forces were responsible for 33
extrajudicial killings in the first 10 months of 1994.  A
substantial number of "mystery killings," in which the
assailant's identity was unknown, also occurred.

Human rights organizations also maintain that security forces
were complicit in a number of these "mystery killings."
The Government maintains that the Hizbullah, an Islamic
terrorist group, carried out 107 "mystery killings" in the
first 9 months of 1994.  The number of "mystery killings"
remained high during the first 10 months of 1994 and, according
to the HRF, 316 civilians were assassinated by unknown
attackers, mostly in the east and southeast of the country.
Many were leaders or prominent members of the Kurdish
community, physicians, human rights monitors, local
politicians, and members of the Democracy Party (DEP).  In the
past 2 years, at least 26 members of the DEP and its successor,
the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), have been murdered.

A parliamentary committee, which commenced its investigation in
1993, continued to investigate mystery murders which have
occurred since 1970, but had issued no report by year's end.

The HRF reported that 18 persons died under suspicious
circumstances while in official custody in the first 9 months
of 1994, some as a result of torture.  Of these, officials
claimed that at least five committed suicide, a claim they have
made frequently in past cases of deaths in custody.  In one
such case, Can Demirag, detained by Istanbul police in
connection with a murder, was found dead on August 23 in his
cell in the Kadikoy security directorate where he was being
interrogated.  Police claimed Demirag had committed suicide by
hanging himself with a sheet on the iron grating of the
ventilation window in the cell; the Istanbul prosecutor's
office opened an investigation into his death, but by year's
end had not released any information.

By law, authorities are obliged to investigate all deaths in
custody, but prosecutions of security force members for such
deaths are rare.  In one case, however, in September, the
Istanbul Beyoglu district prosecutor's office  brought murder
charges against police officer Abdullah Bozkurt on the grounds
that in March he shot to death university student Vedat Han
Gulsenoglu in the Istanbul Kasimpasa district police station.
The prosecution requested a 30-year sentence for murder.

In the southeast there were a number of murders of persons who,
according to the authorities, had been released or were not in
custody, but whose families were certain they were being held.
For example, the Diyarbakir State Security Court (SSC) took
Necati Aydin into custody in March.  On April 4, the judge
signed a release for Aydin, but he never emerged to meet his
waiting family.  On April 9, the bodies of Aydin and a friend,
Mehmet Ay, were found buried to their necks near a river along
the Diyarbakir/Silvan road.  The Government states that the
Diyarbakir Third State Security Court released Aydin and Ay on
their own recognizance, and that they later turned up dead.

In April, five village guards (a government-employed
paramilitary force in the southeast) abducted Diyarbakir
tradesman Serif Avsar in broad daylight.  Avsar's family
followed them to a Jandarma station, yet authorities denied
they were holding Avsar.  He was found dead on May 7.  The
village guards and an informant are on trial for Avsar's
murder.  The Government maintains the murder resulted from an
interclan dispute.

Regarding other ongoing cases, in the death in detention of
Vakkas Dost, the policeman Nurettin Ozturk is still at large,
and the trial is continuing.  The trial in the case of Yucel
Ozen in continuing.  The trial of the 11 police officers in the
Basalak case is ongoing.

Human rights groups and parliamentarians continued to accuse
Turkish security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings
and using excessive force during raids on alleged terrorist
safe houses rather than trying to arrest the occupants.  During
the first 10 months of 1994, 27 people died in such raids,
according to human rights groups.  In Istanbul, two trials were
started against police who had participated in two Dev Sol
(Devrimci Sol, a Marxist terrorist group) safe house raids in
November 1993 in which three persons died.  In another case
stemming from a May 1991 safe house raid in Istanbul in which 2
died, 12 security officers were acquitted.

In an April 1993 shoot-out in Tunceli, 12 Dev Sol militants
were killed.  No investigation was initiated; according to
security forces, an investigation was unnecessary since it was
an armed clash.

Prominent credible human rights organizations, Kurdish leaders,
and local Kurds asserted that the Government acquiesces in, or
even carries out, the murders of civilians.  Government
officials appeared to be investigating more of the reported
murders than in past years.  Some victims had previously been
detained, abused, or threatened by security forces.  Human
rights groups reported the widespread and credible belief that
a counterguerrilla group associated with the security forces
had carried out at least some "mystery killings."  The
Government maintains that two factions of the Hizbullah
committed most "mystery killings."  In June the Diyarbakir SSC
prosecutor's office launched the first trial against 35 members
of Hizbullah's Menzil faction, claiming that the defendants
were responsible for 39 armed attacks, resulting in 25 deaths
and 32 injuries.  A second trial against members of Hizbullah's
Ilim faction began at the Diyarbakir SSC in July.

On September 4, 1993, unknown persons fatally shot Mehmet
Sincar, a DEP member of Parliament (MP) from Mardin, in the
city center of Batman.  Twelve persons were arrested in
connection with the murder, and the case is currently being
tried.  Sincar's widow has accused government forces of
committing the murder and has brought the case before the
European Human Rights Commission.

Four members of the HADEP, successor party to the banned DEP
(see Section 2.b.), were assassinated in the southeast during
September.  No evidence as to the identity of the perpetrators
has been brought to light, and no arrests were made in these
cases.  Faik Candan, former Ankara provincial Chairman of DEP
predecessor HEP, was found dead on December 14, shot four times
in the head, neck, and chest, according to press reports.

In contrast to 1993, there were no assassinations of
journalists in 1994, but at least one journalist disappeared
(see Section 1.b.).  A distributor of the pro-PKK newspaper
Ozgur Ulke was killed in the explosion that ripped through the
paper's Istanbul building on the night of December 3.
Moreover, as of October, none of the five murders of
journalists committed in 1993, nor those previously, had been
solved.

Although terrorists carried out political murders primarily in
rural southeast Anatolia, they also launched several deadly
attacks during 1994 in urban areas.  On January 14, bombs
killed three on intercity buses in central Turkey, and on
February 12, an explosion at Istanbul's Tuzla train station
killed 5 cadets and wounded 26.  The PKK claimed responsibility
for the Tuzla incident, but did not publicly claim
responsibility for the bus explosion, although most people
believe it was responsible.

Killings perpetrated by the PKK included those of state
officials (Jandarma, local mayors, imams, and schoolteachers),
state-paid paramilitary village guards and their family
members, young villagers who refuse to be recruited, and PKK
guerrillas-turned-informants.  On January 1, the PKK
intercepted two buses on the Diyabakir-Elazig highway, took
eight people into a field and shot them.  On July 30, the PKK
killed seven village guards in an attack on Konalga village in
Van province.  The PKK publicly claimed to have killed "179
village guards, including a leading village guard and 32 of his
relatives" and "66 collaborators, agents, counterguerrilla
organization members, (and) police officials," during the month
of June.  Teachers continued to be a main target of terrorist
activities.  During the year the PKK killed 20 teachers.

b.  Disappearance

Disappearances continued in 1994, while most of those reported
in 1993 and earlier remained unsolved.  Some disappeared after
witnesses reported that security forces had taken them into
custody.  In March, Nazim Babaoglu, Urfa correspondent for the
pro-Kurdish daily, Ozgur Gundem, disappeared.  The Government
maintains that Abdulvahap Timurtas, who disappeared in August
1993 in Yenikoy village, Sirnak province, was not taken into
custody, and that a village by that name does not exist.  His
father accuses the security forces of abducting him.  His
brother Tevfik Timurtas died under torture on January 5, 1991,
in Cizre, according to the HRF.  The Government says it
received 28 claims of missing relatives in the first 9 months
of 1994.

The Government, human rights organizations, and the media
report that the PKK routinely kidnaps young men or threatens
their families as part of its recruiting.  PKK terrorists
continued their abductions of local villagers, teachers,
journalists, and officials in the southeast.  For example, on
January 26 the PKK kidnaped two journalists and held them for
4 months.  The PKK again kidnaped two foreign tourists during
the summer and eventually released them unharmed.

c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Despite the Constitution's ban on torture, Turkey's accession
to the U.N. and European Conventions Against Torture, and
public pledges of successive governments to end torture, the
practice continued.  Human rights attorneys and physicians who
treat victims of torture state that most persons charged with,
or suspected of, political crimes usually suffer some torture
during periods of incommunicado detention in police stations
and Jandarma headquarters before they are brought before a
court.  The HRF and private attorneys reported that there was
no indication of either the amelioration of treatment of those
charged under the Anti-Terror Law or an overall decrease in the
incidence of torture in 1994.  In 1994 women again charged
sexual abuses while under official detention by security officials.

Although the implementation of the CMUK on December 1, 1992,
facilitated more immediate attorney access to those arrested
for common crimes, its provisions of immediate attorney access
do not apply to those detained in the state of emergency region
nor to those detained under the Anti-Terror Law.  Some
attorneys in the southeast reported that some common criminals
are booked on political charges, thereby depriving them of
access to or by an attorney.  The CMUK's allowable, maximum
prearraignment detention periods still exceed Council of Europe
maximums.

Human rights observers report that the system whereby the
arresting police officer is also responsible for interrogating
the suspect is conducive to torture because the officer seeks
to obtain a confession that would justify the arrest.
According to those familiar with Turkish police operations, in
petty criminal cases, the arresting officer is responsible for
following up on the case, whereas in major cases such as murder
and political or terrorism-related crimes, "desks" responsible
for the area in question are responsible for the interrogation.

Commonly employed methods of torture reported by the Human
Rights Foundation's Torture Treatment Centers include:
high-pressure cold water hoses, electric shocks, beating on the
soles of the feet, beating of the genitalia, hanging by the
arms, blindfolding, sleep deprivation, deprivation of clothing,
systematic beatings, and vaginal and anal rape with truncheons
and, in some instances, gun barrels.  In southern Turkey, a
security official boasted of having deprived a suspect of sleep
for 6 days to obtain a confession.

In a case in Istanbul in July, Yelda Ozcan, a former
representative of the HRF, stated to several human rights
organizations that a chief commissioner at the Beyoglu security
directorate had stripped and beaten her.  She obtained a
medical report and lodged an official complaint against the
commissioner.  In another case, in April a 17-year-old female
student stated she had been beaten, hosed with pressurized
water, and raped with a truncheon by police at Istanbul's
Bahcelievler station, then released without charges having been
filed.

Although the Government asserted that medical examinations
occur once during detention and a second time before either
arraignment or release, former detainees asserted that some
medical examinations took place too long after the event to
reveal any definitive findings.  According to the HRF, practice
varies widely:  In some cases proper examinations are
conducted; in others, doctors sign papers handed to them; some
examinations are cursory, some are done in the presence of
police officials, and some doctors are at times under pressure
to submit false or misleading medical certificates, denying
evidence of torture.

Credible sources in the human rights and legal communities
estimate that judicial authorities investigate only about
one-half of the formal complaints involving torture and
prosecute only a small fraction of those.  Under the
Anti-Terror Law, officials accused of torture or other
mistreatment may continue to work while under investigation
and, if convicted, may only be suspended.

Special provincial administrative boards, rather than regular
courts, decide whether to prosecute in such cases, and
suspects' legal fees are paid by their employing agencies.
Under the state of emergency, any lawsuit directed at
government authorities must be approved by the regional
governor.  Because approval is rare, this blocks legal pursuit
of torture allegations.  Under the Administrative Adjudication
Law, an administrative investigation into alleged torture cases
is conducted under the civil service adjudication law to
determine if there is enough evidence to bring a law
enforcement officer to trial.  Under the CMUK, while
prosecutors are empowered to initiate investigations of police
officers or Jandarma suspected of torturing or maltreating
suspects, in cases where township security directors or
Jandarma commanders are accused of torture, the prosecutor must
obtain permission to initiate an investigation from the
Ministry of Justice because these officials are deemed to have
a status equal to that of judges.

According to the Government, in the first 9 months of 1994,
prosecutors considered 963 complaints of torture or
maltreatment.  Of those, 314 cases were opened, 355 were in
preparation, 187 were dropped, in 25 cases the court decided it
did not have the authority to pursue the case, and in 47 cases
the court referred the case to another court.  There were 11
convictions, 22 acquittals; in one case the complaint was
withdrawn.  Most of these cases were in Istanbul and Ankara;
few were in the southeast.

In the few instances in which law enforcement officers are
convicted of torture, sentences tend to be light.  In July
Ekrem Guner, a noncommissioned officer, was convicted of
torturing two persons in Ordu in 1989, sentenced to 2 years in
prison, suspended from duty for 5 months and 15 days, and fined
TL 375,000 (roughly $12).  In July the Ankara administrative
court ordered the Interior Ministry to pay Mediha Curabaz TL 10
million (roughly $300) in compensation for torture she
sustained in August 1991 by the Adana police.  The Adana
provincial administrative commission had refused to try the
police officers involved on charges of rape and torture,
despite a medical report which confirmed the charge of rape.
The trial of six security officers accused of torturing Baki
Erdogan (who died in custody) in Soke district of Aydin
province in August 1993 began in May and was continuing at
year's end.  In April the torture conviction of two officers
and two noncommissioned officers in the 1985 torture and death
of schoolteacher Siddik Bilgin was overturned on appeal, and
the officers were acquitted on retrial.. The case of Nazli Top,
a nurse (pregnant at the time) who alleged she was tortured and
raped with a truncheon in April 1992 before police released her
without charge, came to trial in December 1993. The trial continues.

As Turkey recognizes the jurisdiction of the European Court of
Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights,
Turkish citizens may file applications alleging violations of
the European Convention on Human Rights with the Commission.
Some 250 cases are currently before the Commission.  In
February the Government promised the Commission to pay
compensation to the villagers of Yesilyurt in Cizre province
whom Jandarma troops forced to eat human excrement in January
1989. A total of 300,000 French francs in compensation is to be paid.

In January authorities sent a Prime Ministerial circular to the
Ministries of Justice, Interior, and Foreign Affairs, directing
that police prepare monthly reports on the incidence of ill-
treatment and torture and ensure that medical examinations are
carried out carefully to provide accurate forensic evidence.
While statistics generally have been submitted as required,
there is no evidence that the reporting requirement has had any
effect on the incidence of torture.

As of September, 4,149 applications claiming torture,
maltreatment, or arbitrary detention had been filed with the
parliamentary Human Rights Commission, since its September 1991
inception.  In each case, the Commission had written to the
offices of the public prosecutor, the governor's office, and
the security directorate general, and there is no indication
that these communications have had any effect or that the
Commission has followed up on these cases.  The HRF's torture
rehabilitation centers in Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul reported
that, within the first 6 months of 1994, they had received a
total of 196 applications for treatment.

Police continue to force women in custody and others to undergo
virginity testing even though the state minister in charge of
women's affairs condemned the practice in 1992.  The tests are
imposed particularly on women who file a criminal complaint
alleging a sexual crime.  Although legally only a court or a
prosecutor may order them, police continue to impose the tests
to on female detainees.  Though women may refuse the exams,
they are rarely informed of that right.

Prison conditions remained another problem area in 1994.  As
recently as early November, the Justice Ministry announced
plans to build new prisons and upgrade old ones to deal with
the increase in the number of inmates convicted of terrorist
crimes.  The refurbished Eskisehir Prison and four others were
to reopen by the end of the year.  As in 1993, groups of
inmates carried out hunger strikes to protest poor conditions
and their treatment by prison guards, and one inmate was killed
and several injured in an October riot at Diyarbakir Security
Prison.  The Government promised prison reform in 1993, but at
the end of 1994 Parliament had not enacted it.  Torture in
prisons has decreased in the last few years, but continues to occur.

d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

In order to take a person into custody, a prosecutor must issue
a detention order, except in limited circumstances such as when
a person is caught in the act of committing a crime.  The
detention period for those charged with common, individual
crimes is 24 hours.  Those detained for common, collective
crimes may be held for 4 days, and the detention period may be
extended for an additional 4 days.  Under the CMUK, suspects
are entitled to immediate access to an attorney and may meet
and confer with the attorney at any time.  In practice, this
access continued to improve for detainees charged with common crimes.

Persons detained for individual crimes which fall under the
Anti-Terror Law must be brought before a judge within 48 hours,
while those charged with crimes of a collective, political, or
conspiratorial nature may be detained for up to 15 days in most
of the country and up to 30 days in the 10 southeastern
provinces under a state of emergency.  There is no guaranteed
attorney access under law for persons whose cases fall under
the jurisdiction of the state security courts; these include
those charged with smuggling and with crimes under the
Anti-Terror Law.  Attorneys and human rights organizations
affirm that this lack of access is a major factor in the
continuing, widespread use of torture by police and security forces.

The decision concerning access to counsel in such cases is left
to the independent prosecutor, who generally denies access,
usually with the explanation that it would prejudice an ongoing
investigation.  The Justice and Interior Ministries generally
have not intervened in prosecutors' decisions or police actions
denying access to counsel.  Although the Constitution specifies
the right of detainees to request speedy arraignment and trial,
judges have ordered a significant number of persons detained
indefinitely, sometimes for years.  While many cases involved
persons accused of violent crimes, it is not uncommon for those
accused of nonviolent political crimes to be kept in custody
until the conclusion of their trials.

By law, a detainee's next of kin must be notified "in the
shortest time" after arrest.  Once formally charged by the
prosecutor, a detainee is arraigned by a judge and allowed to
retain a lawyer.  After arraignment, the judge may release the
accused upon receipt of an appropriate guarantee, such as bail,
or order him detained if the court determines that he is likely
to flee the jurisdiction or destroy evidence.

Authorities detained large numbers of people on several
occasions in 1994, including the detention in February of 100
people at the funeral of Cengiz Arguc, a Communist militant, in
Adana (all but 5 were released within a day); and the detention
during Nevroz (Kurdish New Year) of 200 persons in Diyarbakir
after a celebrant reportedly shot at a police car.  In most
such cases, the majority of detainees are subsequently released
without charges being filed; many have reported being tortured
during such detentions.  In the southeast there were several
roundups of ethnic Kurds in the wake of a crime.  For example,
after 5 PKK militants killed 1 policeman and wounded 5 near
Igdir in April, police reportedly captured the 5 militants and
claimed that "175 PKK supporters" were captured in the ensuing
security operations.

There is no external exile, and Turkey's internal exile law was
repealed in 1987.  In 1990, however, under decree 430, the
Government granted the southeast regional governor the
authority to "remove from the region," for a period not to
exceed the duration of the state of emergency (now in its
eighth year), citizens under his administration whose
activities (whether voluntary or forced) "give an impression
that they are prone to disturb general security and public
order."  There were no known instances of the use of this broad
authority in 1994.  Human rights monitors and residents of
towns in the southeast report that officials continued to rely
on "administrative transfers" to remove government employees
thought liable to "create trouble."

e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

The judicial system is composed of general law courts, state
security courts (SSC), and military courts.  There is also a
Constitutional Court.  Most cases are prosecuted in the general
law courts, which include the civil, administrative, and
criminal courts.  Appeals are heard either by the High Court of
Appeals or the Council of State.  Provincial administrative
boards established under the Anti-Terror Law decide whether
cases in which state officials are accused of misconduct should
be heard in criminal court.  Military courts, with their own
appeals system, hear cases regarding infractions of military
law by members of the armed forces.  In 1993 and 1994, the
military court tried several cases of civilians charged with
speech that purportedly discouraged military service (see Section 2.a.).

Eight state security courts composed of five members--two
civilian judges, one military judge, and two prosecutors--try
defendants accused of crimes such as terrorism, drug smuggling,
membership in illegal organizations, and espousing or
disseminating ideas prohibited by law as "damaging the
indivisible unity of the State."  Their verdicts may be
appealed only to a specialized department of the High Court of
Appeals dealing with crimes against state security.

The Constitutional Court examines the constitutionality of
laws, decrees, and parliamentary procedural rules.  However, it
may not consider "decrees with the force of law" issued under a
state of emergency, martial law, or in time of war.

The Constitution requires that judges be independent of the
executive in the discharge of their duties and provides for the
security of their tenure.  The High Council of Judges and
Prosecutors, which is appointed by the President and includes
the Minister of Justice, selects judges and prosecutors for the
higher courts and is responsible for oversight of those in the
lower courts.  The Constitution also prohibits state
authorities from issuing orders or recommendations concerning
the exercise of judicial power.  In practice, the courts
generally act independently of the executive.  Defendants
normally have the right to a public trial, and, under the
Constitution, can be proven guilty only by a court of law.  By
law, the bar association must provide free counsel to indigents
who make such a request to the court.  Costs are borne by the
association.  There is no jury system; all cases are decided by
a judge or panel of judges.

Defense lawyers generally have access to the independent
prosecutor's files after arraignment and prior to trial (a
period of several weeks).  In cases involving violations of the
Anti-Terror Law and a few others, such as insulting the
President or "defaming Turkish citizenship," defense attorneys
may be denied access to files which the State asserts deal with
national intelligence or security matters.

In 1994 state security courts predominantly handled cases under
the Anti-Terror Law.  The State claims these courts were
established to try efficiently those suspected of certain
crimes.  In fact, the law provides that those accused of crimes
falling under the jurisdiction of these courts may be detained
twice as long before arraignment as other defendants, and the
heavy caseload often means that cases drag on for years.  These
courts may hold closed hearings and may admit testimony
obtained during police interrogation in the absence of
counsel.  According to government figures, 1,277 persons were
tried under the Anti-Terror Law, and 8,682 people are serving
sentences for terrorist crimes.  The trial of 12 Diyarbakir
lawyers charged with acting as couriers for the PKK continues
at the Diyarbakir State Security Court.  The attorneys were
released on their own recognizance in December 1993 and January
1994.  The trial of nine Erzurum lawyers, charged with similar
crimes, began on November l6.

In law and in practice, the legal system does not discriminate
against either minorities or women, with the following two
caveats:  (1) as legal proceedings are conducted solely in
Turkish, and the quality of interpreters varies, some
Kurdish-speaking defendants may be seriously disadvantaged; and
(2) although women receive equal treatment in a court of law,
some discriminatory laws remain on the books, although most
have been rendered inoperative by a constitutional court
decision.  Under the civil code, the husband is the head of the
household and determines the legal domicile of the family.
Draft civil rights legislation which would have eliminated all
existing legal inequalities between men and women has been
stalled in Parliament since 1993.  In 1994, civil service
security clearance procedures were changed, which should allow
numerous professors who were blackballed in the late 1970s to
be reemployed.

Human rights monitors hesitate to estimate the number of
persons in custody who might reasonably be considered political
prisoners.  They estimate only that "thousands" have been
detained.  According to government statistics, 1,277 persons
were charged under the Anti-Terror Law though October 1, 1994.
Many are charged for attempting peacefully to exercise their
right of freedom of speech, association, or some other
internationally recognized human rights.

f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence