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

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From: newsdesk_aps_nl at apsf.aps.nl (newsdesk at aps.nl)
Subject: ABD DI$i$leri BakanlIGI'nIn, TR'de Insan HaklarI Raporu, 4 ve son


Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental
           Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights

A nongovernmental Human Rights Association (HRA), officially
approved in 1987, has branches in 50 provincial capitals, but
at year's end 13 had been closed, all of them in the east and
southeast.  It claims a membership of about 20,000.  In 1990
the HRA established its companion Human Rights Foundation (HRF)
which, in addition to operating torture rehabilitation centers
in Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul, serves as a clearinghouse for
human rights information.  Other nongovernmental organizations
include the Ankara-based Turkish Democracy Foundation, the
Istanbul-based Helsinki Citizens Assembly, and human rights
centers at a number of universities.

Government agents have increasingly harassed human rights
monitors, as well as lawyers and doctors involved in
documenting human rights violations.  Some have reported
receiving death threats from unknown parties.  At least one
human rights monitor was killed.  A number have been
aggressively prosecuted as well.  In December, a SSC trial
opened against Yavuz Onen, President of the HRF, and Fevzi
Argun, head of the HRF'S Documentation Center, for allegedly
separatist language in the booklet "File of Torture."  They
were acquitted in January along with four defendants from the
HRA who had been indicted for their publication of "A
Cross-Section of Burned-Down Villages."  In December three
members of the board of the Diyarbakir HRA were arrested on
charges of separatism and four others were being sought for
their 1992 publication of "Report On The State Of Emergency
Region, 1992."

Some government officials, including some prosecutors and
police, punitively apply various laws to restrict the HRA's
activities.  For example, officials ordered various branches of
the HRA closed for periods of weeks or months generally on
charges that they had violated the associations law through
publication of a press statement or allegedly separatist
material (see Section 2.b.).  An HRA president in southern
Turkey said he and his board remained under surveillance, and
one in eastern Turkey noted that many board members had left
the city or resigned because they were concerned about their
personal safety.

The president of the Siirt HRA, who was arrested on February
26, 1993, and detained for 3 months on charges of giving aid
and comfort to the PKK, was again arrested on January 21, 1994,
after which the local branch closed.  He was released in
October, but charges against him have not been dropped.  Sedat
Aslantas, chairman of the Diyarbakir HRA branch and vice
chairman of the Turkish HRA, was arrested on May 13 by the
Ankara SSC on charges related to a joint press statement issued
in May 1993 by Diyarbakir union and association leaders.  That
trial continued as of the end of the year.  On December 5, he
was imprisoned for 3 years based on an earlier case involving
his speech during an HRA congress in October 1992.  The HRA
representative in the town of Derik, Mardin province, who was
detained six separate times in 1993, has moved away, and the
local HRA office is closed.  Muhsin Melik, founder of the
Sanliurfa branch of the HRA and former president of the DEP
branch office, was shot and killed on June 2.  Before his
death, he identified his assailants as police officers.  There
have been no arrests in connection with this case.  Other HRA
offices closed for similar reasons include those in Sirnak,
Nusaybin, Tunceli, Dogubeyazit, and Cizre.  Many of these
investigations and prosecutions, as well as many arrests of
human rights monitors, stemmed from alleged violations of the
law on associations or the holding of illegal demonstrations.
Surveillance and harassment of HRA members in the southeast
continues on a regular basis.

Since 1991, Parliament has had a Human Rights Commission.  The
Commission is authorized to oversee Turkey's compliance with
the human rights provisions of Turkish law and international
agreements to which Turkey is a signatory, investigate alleged
abuses, and prepare reports.  Claiming it is underfunded and
lacks the necessary powers to subpoena witnesses or documents,
the Commission has been inactive and ineffective.  In August
the State Minister in charge of human rights announced the
establishment of a human rights advisory department connected
to the Prime Ministry would be established to investigate
allegations of human rights violations and monitor
international human rights developments.

While representatives of diplomatic missions who wish to
monitor the state of human rights in Turkey are free to speak
with private citizens, security police may place such visitors
in the southeast and the east under surveillance, and the
presence of security officials may have an intimidating effect
upon those interviewed.  Access to government officials or
facilities has been restricted at times, although in 1993 and
1994 high-level visitors obtained most of the appointments they
requested, including access to detention facilities.  However,
in August a delegation from Human Rights Watch/Helsinki was
unable to obtain the cooperation of the Regional Super
Governor's office to investigate PKK human rights abuses
outside of Diyarbakir.  In September Amnesty International's
principal researcher for Turkey was declared persona non
grata.  Also in September, the Foreign Minister announced his
intention to restrict foreign visitor access to judges and
prosecutors.

Section 5  Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion, Disability, Language,
           or Social Status

The Constitution proclaims Turkey to be a secular state,
regards all Turkish citizens as equal, and prohibits
discrimination on ethnic, religious, or racial grounds.  The
Government officially recognizes only those religious
minorities mentioned in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which
guarantees the rights of Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic,
and Jewish adherents.  Despite constitutional provisions,
discrimination remains a problem in several areas.

Women

Traditional family values in rural Turkey place a greater
emphasis on advanced education for sons than for daughters.
Far fewer girls than boys continue their education after
primary school.  The illiteracy rate for women is approximately
29 percent, some 10 percent higher than for the population as a
whole.  Turkey's civil code, which prohibits granting
gender-based privileges or rights, retains some discriminatory
provisions concerning marital rights and obligations.  Because
the husband is the legal head of household, the wife
automatically acquires the husband's surname with marriage; the
husband is authorized to choose the domicile and represents the
conjugal unit.  As parents, husband and wife exercise their
rights jointly, but when they disagree, the husband's view
prevails.  Women's groups have lobbied to change this
provision.  Divorce law requires that the divorcing spouses
divide their property according to property registered in each
spouse's name.  Because in most cases property is registered in
the husband's name, this can create difficulties for women who
wish to divorce.  With regard to inheritance laws, a widow
generally obtains one-fourth of the estate.

Although spousal abuse is a serious and widespread problem, it
is still considered an extremely private matter, involving
societal notions of family honor.  Few women go to the police,
who in any case are reluctant to intervene in domestic disputes
and frequently advise women to return to their husbands.  Turks
of either sex may file civil or criminal charges but rarely
do.  A combination of laws and ingrained societal notions make
it difficult to prosecute sexual assault or rape cases.  By
law, penalties may be reduced if a woman was not a virgin prior
to a rape.  Penalties may also be reduced if a judge deems the
woman to have acted provocatively.  There are several shelters
for battered women, and at least two consultation centers,
Istanbul's the Purple Roof Foundation and Ankara's Altindag
Center.  In a 1-year period, 400 women applied to one major
city shelter.

Particularly in urban areas, women are improving their position
overall, including in the professions, business, and the civil
service, although they continue to face discrimination to
varying degrees.  Numerous women have become lawyers, doctors,
and engineers since the 1960's.  In March a woman for the first
time was elected chief justice of a court of appeals.  Women
comprise about 36 percent of the work force; approximately 80
percent of working women are employed in agriculture.  They
generally receive equal pay for equal work in the professions,
business, and civil service jobs, although a large percentage
of women employed in agriculture and in the trade, restaurant,
and hotel sectors work as unpaid family help.  The arbitrary
barrier to women becoming governors and subgovernors
(government-appointed positions) has been breached, and women
may now take the examination required to become a subgovernor.
Several have been appointed subgovernors, and one governor is a woman.

Independent women's and women's rights associations exist, but
the concept of lobbying for women's rights has not gained currency.

Children

The Government is committed to furthering children's welfare
and is working to expand opportunities in education and health,
including further reduction of the infant mortality rate.

Children have suffered greatly from the cycle of violence in
southeastern Anatolia.  School closings and the migration of
many families, forced or voluntary, have uprooted children to
cities which are hard pressed to find the resources to extend
basic, mandatory services, such as schooling.  The Government
is establishing regional boarding schools in the southeast to
help combat this problem but not enough to meet the need.  The
HRF claims that 78 children were subjected to torture between
January 1989 and July 1994.

National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

The Constitution, following the Treaty of Lausanne, does not
recognize the Kurds in Turkey as a national, racial, or ethnic
minority.  Many human rights abuses are targeted at Kurds who
insist on publicly or politically asserting their Kurdish
ethnic identity, and their supporters.

Kurds who are long-term residents in industrialized cities in
western Turkey have been, for the most part, assimilated into
the political, economic, and social life of the nation.  Kurds
who are currently migrating westward (including those displaced
by the conflict in the southeast), bring with them their
Kurdish culture and village identity; many simply are not
prepared for urban life.

Most parliamentary representatives from southeastern Turkey are
ethnic Kurds, but representatives of Kurdish ethnic origin have
been elected from districts far removed from the southeast.
Several Cabinet Ministers, more than 25 percent of M.P.'s and
other government officials claim an ethnic Kurdish background.

The increasing violence of the fighting in the southeast is
polarizing ethnic Turks and Kurds and creating a climate of
intolerance.  Particularly in cities such as Adana and Mersin,
which have witnessed a large influx of Kurds fleeing the
violence in the southeast, tensions continue to rise.  With PKK
bombings in Aegean resort towns and Istanbul, tensions have
also spread westward, making it difficult, for example, for
some otherwise qualified new migrants to find work in the
western cities.

The 1991 repeal of the law prohibiting publications or
communication in Kurdish legalized some spoken and printed
Kurdish communications.  Under the political parties law,
however, all discussion that takes place at political meetings
must be in Turkish.  Kurdish may be spoken only in
"nonpolitical communication."  Court proceedings (and all
government functions, including public education) continue to
be conducted in Turkish, disadvantaging those Kurdish-speaking
defendants who have to rely on court-provided translators.
Moreover, materials dealing with Kurdish history, culture, and
ethnic identity continue to be subject to confiscation and
prosecution under the "indivisible unity of the State"
provisions of the Anti-Terror Law.

The Roma population is extremely small, and there were no
reported incidents of public or government harassment directed
against Roma during 1994.

People with Disabilities

To date legislation dealing with the disabled is piecemeal, and
there is little legislation regarding accessibility for the
disabled.  Certain categories of employers are required to hire
disabled persons as 2 percent of their employee pool, although
there is no penalty for failure to comply.

Section 6  Worker Rights

a.  The Right of Association

Most workers have the right to associate freely and form
representative unions.  Exceptions are schoolteachers (both
public and private), civil servants, the police, and military
personnel.  Upon taking office in June 1993, the Government of
Prime Minister Ciller renewed the pledge to bring Turkish labor
legislation into conformity with the standards of the
International Labor Organization (ILO), and its intention to
grant trade union rights to civil servants (including
teachers).  In early 1994, the Government introduced in
Parliament a bill to grant to civil servants the legal right to
form unions, which includes some collective bargaining rights.
The draft law would also allow the Government to determine
whether to permit a particular strike by civil servants.  In
May a combination of center-right and Islamist-right political
party deputies voted against the draft in parliamentary
committee.  The Government and Parliament must now reconcile
their differences on this legislation.  Permission for civil
servants to form trade unions and for unions to engage in
political activity will require amendments to the Constitution
--a procedure further complicated by the need to gain support
among the opposition parties in order to secure the requisite
two-thirds majority.

The law states that unions and confederations may be founded
without prior authorization based on a petition to the governor
of the province where the union's headquarters are to be
located.  Although unions are independent of the Government and
political parties, they must have government permission to hold
meetings or rallies and must allow police to attend conventions
and record the proceedings.  The Constitution requires
candidates for union office to have worked 10 years in the
industry represented by the union.  Some 14 percent of the
total civilian labor force (aged 15 and above) are unionized.
There are three confederations of labor unions in Turkey:  the
Turkish Confederation of Workers Unions (Turk-Is), the
Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Hak-Is), and the
Confederation of Revolutionary Workers Unions (DISK).  There
are also some independent unions.

Unions and their officers have a statutory right to express
views on issues directly affecting members' economic and social
interests, but the Constitution prohibits any union role in
party politics (such as organic or financial connections with
any political party or other association).  In practice, unions
have been able to convey clearly in election and referendum
campaigns their support for, or opposition to, given political
parties and government policies.  In May the Government
proposed a "democratization" package.  One of its proposals
would allow unions and other groups (women and students, for
example) to have formal links to political parties.
Prosecutors may request labor courts to order a trade union or
confederation into liquidation based on alleged violation of
specific legal norms.  The Government, however, may not
summarily dissolve a union.

The right to strike, while guaranteed in the Constitution, is
partially restricted.  For example, workers engaged in the
protection of life and property and those in the mining and
petroleum industries, sanitation services, national defense,
and education do not have the right to strike.  Collective
bargaining is required before a strike.

The law specifies the series of steps a union must take before
it may strike or an employer may engage in a lockout.
Nonbinding mediation is the last of those steps.  In sectors in
which strikes are prohibited, disputes are resolved through
binding arbitration.  A party that fails to comply with these
steps forfeits its rights.  The struck employer may respond
with a lockout but is prohibited from hiring strikebreakers or
using administrative personnel to perform jobs normally done by
strikers.  Article 42 of Law 2822, governing collective
bargaining, strikes, and lockouts, prohibits the employer from
terminating workers encouraging or participating in a legal
strike.  Unions are forbidden to engage in secondary
(solidarity), wildcat, or general strikes.

The Government also has the statutory power to suspend strikes
for 60 days for reasons of national security or public health
and safety.  Unions may petition the Council of State to lift
such a suspension, but if this appeal fails the strike is
subject to compulsory arbitration at the end of the 60-day
period.  Some 24 strikes, involving about 1,800 workers, took
place in the first 10 months of 1994.  The Government did not
suspend any strikes in 1994.

With government approval, unions may and do form or join
confederations and international labor bodies, as long as these
organizations are not hostile to Turkey or to freedom of
religion or belief.  The International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) approved DISK as an affiliate in December
1992.  Turk-Is is a longstanding member.  Hak-Is applied for
ICFTU affiliation in 1993.  The application remains pending
with the ICFTU.

In June the Parliament reapproved ILO Convention 158
(termination of employment at the initiative of the employer),
a measure which the late President Ozal had vetoed in 1992
after the Parliament had passed it.  President Demirel signed
the measure.  As mentioned in Sections 2.a. and 2.b. above, in
some instances labor union members have been the subject of
government limits on freedom of speech and assembly.

b.  The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

All industrial workers have the right to organize and bargain
collectively, and most industrial activity and some public
sector agricultural activities are organized.  The law requires
that, in order to become a bargaining agent, a union must
represent not only 50 percent plus one of the employees at a
given work site but also 10 percent of all the workers in that
particular industry.  This 10-percent barrier has the effect of
favoring established unions, and particularly those affiliated
with Turk-Is, the confederation that represents nearly 80
percent of organized labor in Turkey.

The ILO has called on Turkey to rescind this 10-percent rule.
Both Turk-Is and the Turkish employers' organization favor
retention of the rule, however, and the Government has not
until now pursued a change.  However, the government
representative informed the ILO Committee on the Application of
Standards that the Ministry of Labor and Social Security now
proposes to remove the 10-percent numerical restriction, and
that its proposal had been communicated to the social partners.

The law on trade unions stipulates that an employer may not
dismiss a labor union representative without rightful cause.
The union member may appeal such a dismissal to the courts and,
if the ruling is in the union member's favor, the employer must
reinstate him and pay all back benefits and salary.

Union organizing and collective bargaining are permitted in the
duty-free export processing zones at Antalya, Istanbul, Izmir,
and Mersin.  Workers in those zones, however, are not allowed
to strike during the first 10 years of operation.  Until then,
settlements not otherwise reached will be determined by binding
arbitration.

c.  Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

The Constitution and statutes prohibit compulsory labor.  The
laws are enforced.

d.  Minimum Age for Employment of Children

The Constitution and labor laws forbid employment of children
younger than 15 years of age, with the exception that those
aged 13 and 14 may engage in light part-time work if enrolled
in school or vocational training.  The Constitution also
prohibits children from engaging in physically demanding jobs,
such as underground mining, and from working at night.  The
Ministry of Labor effectively enforces these laws only in the
organized industrial sector.

In practice, many children work because families frequently
need the supplementary income.  An informal system provides
work for young boys at low wages, e.g., in auto repair shops.
Girls are rarely seen working in public, but many are kept out
of school to work in handicrafts, especially in rural areas.
Turkey is participating in the ILO's international program on
the elimination of child labor.

 e.  Acceptable Conditions of Work

The Labor Ministry is legally obliged to set minimum wages at
least every 2 years through a minimum wage board, a tripartite
government-industry-union body.  In recent years it has done so
annually.  In July the nominal minimum wage in Turkish lira
(TL) was increased by approximately 67 percent over the year
before.  The monthly minimum wage rate (after taxes), which
became effective September 1, is approximately $86 for workers
older than 16 and about $73 for workers under 16 at the
exchange rate prevailing in September.

It would be difficult for a single worker, and impossible for a
family, to live on the minimum wage without support from other
sources.   Most workers earn considerably more.  Workers
covered by the labor law, who constitute about one-third of the
total labor force, also receive a hot meal, daily food
allowance; transportation to and from work; a fuel allowance;
and other fringe benefits which, according to the Turkish
employers' organization, make basic wages alone only about 37
percent of total remuneration.

Labor law provides for a nominal 45-hour workweek, although
most unions have bargained for fewer hours.  The law prescribes
a weekly rest day.  Labor law limits the number of overtime
hours to 3 hours a day for up to 90 days in a year.  The labor
inspectorate of the Ministry of Labor effectively enforces wage
and hour provisions in the unionized industrial, service, and
government sectors.

Occupational health and safety regulations are mandated by law,
but the Government has not carried out an effective inspection
and enforcement program.  Law 1475 allows for the shutdown of
an operation if a five-man committee, which includes safety
inspectors, employee, and employer representatives, determines
that the operation endangers workers' lives.  In practice,
financial constraints, limited safety awareness, carelessness,
and fatalistic attitudes result in scant attention to
occupational safety and health by workers and employers alike.