This report, issued by the Advocates of Silence Turkey (AST), details an alarming misuse of counterterrorism laws in Turkey to systematically target and dismantle philanthropic efforts supporting the Gülen Movement.
Purge of Thousands of Health Care Professionals and Doctor Umut
The Ministry of Health has announced that more than 7,500 health care professionals including many physicians have been dismissed within the scope of a mass purge of government employees from their jobs. The purge has resulted in devastating consequences for dismissed physicians as they face hardship in finding a new position after being demonized by the government and their names plastered all over the media. Amnesty International called the mass dismissal of Turkish public sector workers a “professional annihilation” that has a catastrophic impact on their lives and livelihoods.
However, research carried out by the Stockholm
Center for Freedom (SCF) shows that over 21,000 health care professionals
including doctors, medical professors, nurses, technicians and hospital staff have
thus far been dismissed from public and private hospitals as well as medical schools and associations.
Doctor Umut’s story shed light on the devastating consequences of those political purges by Erdogan’s regime.
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Academic Purge and Brain Drain of Turkey by SRW
Academic Purge and Brain Drain of Turkey. It started long before Turkey’s July 15, 2016 botched coup attempt. Slowly but steadily, young professionals, entrepreneurs, engineers, academics and new graduates started leaving their home country in search of a better future.
5,882 academics and 1,372 administrative personnel have been dismissed at universities as part of the Turkish government’s post-coup crackdown.
Over 2,300 have been fired for alleged links to the July 15 coup attempt, while 15 private universities linked to the Gulen movement have been closed down.
This video was prepared by Scholars Right Watch (SRW)
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Children and their Mothers are Prisoners of Conscience in Turkey
One of the most alarming actions of the Turkish authorities is the incarceration of women who are pregnant or have just given birth. Some are incarcerated with their children and others violently separated from them. At this moment, seven hundred forty-three (743) children under the age of six are in jails across Turkey with their mothers, detained or arrested as part of the government crackdown on its dissidents. One hundred forty-nine (149) of these children are infants under a year old. “This is simply outrageous, utterly cruel, and surely cannot have anything whatsoever to do with making the country safer” as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein” also emphasized.
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Turkey May Face Sanctions After EU Court Decision Regarding Jailed Kurdish Politician.
European Court Slams Erdogan Administration For Imprisonment of Kurdish Politician
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) called on Turkey to release Selahattin Demirtas, the former co-chairman of pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), who has been imprisoned for two years and sharply criticized his ongoing imprisonment.
In an unusually blunt statement, the ECtHR portrayed Demirtas’s continuing imprisonment as politically motivated. While the court said Demirtas had been arrested on “reasonable suspicion,” the extensions of his detention lacks plausible justification.
In November 2016, Demirtas, along with other HDP Co-Chair Figen Yuksekdag, have been arrested on the charges of having links to outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
He faces dozens of years in prison if convicted. Prosecutors particularly charge him with instigating the violent anti-government protests in October 2014 when HDP supporters took into streets to protest the Erdogan government’s indifference to Islamic State (ISIS) onslaught on the Syrian border town of Kobani.
More than 40 people had been killed during Kobani protests across Turkey. Demirtas vehemently denies any role for the outbreak of violence. His imprisonment came when the Turkish government unleashed a massive crackdown on opponents in different quarters of the political spectrum, arresting tens of thousands of people, including HDP lawmakers and supporters.
Unlike its verdict and judgment on previous applications from Turkey regarding detention of journalists, the ECtHR invoked the 18th article of European Human Rights Convention in its recent decision, setting the stage for a potential diplomatic showdown.
The 18th article appears as binding for the countries against which the verdict was delivered. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outright dismissed ECtHR call for the release of Demirtas.
“[The extensions of detention] had pursued the predominant ulterior purpose of stifling pluralism and limiting freedom of political debate, which was at the very core of the concept of a democratic society,” the top human rights court said in its statement.
“The Court therefore held, unanimously, that the respondent state was to take all necessary measures to put an end to the applicant’s pre-trial detention,” the court added, pressing Turkey to act swiftly.
In its articulation of the reasoning, the ECtHR referred to the “tense political climate” in Turkey, an element that “created an environment capable of influencing certain decisions by the national courts.”
If Turkey refuses to comply with the recent verdict, it would have grave ramifications for Turkey’s relations with the Council of Europe. Ankara may face sanctions in the case of non-compliance and even lose its membership in the Council of Europe, as the 18th article requires for the failing respondent states.
Imprisonment of Academics Sparks Public Backlash
In a new round of crackdown, Istanbul police units have detained a number of academics linked with philanthropist Osman Kavala, who has been in prison for nearly a year, sparking criticism and condemnation from large segments of society, including leading business organization TUSIAD.
The new wave of arrests took place as part of Istanbul police’s efforts to dismantle Kavala-affiliated NGO Anadolu Kultur. Law Professor Turgut Tarhanli and Professor Betul Tanbay are among the detained.
“It is very sad to begin the day with the news of detention of many academics at a time when we were talking the return of scientists to the country. We owe the productivity of the lands in which we live to our culture that has become a shelter of science for centuries. We cannot progress by denying this!” Erol Bilecik, the head of the Turkish Industry and Business People’s Association (TUSIAD) wrote on Twitter, expressing his dismay.
Kavala, a secular and pro-Western activist, was imprisoned last year. Despite calls from the international community, the Turkish authorities did not allow his release.
Kurdish Politician Says Erdogan Behind Latest Crackdown
Co-Chair of pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) pointed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as someone who pulled the strings behind a massive crackdown that targeted more than a 100 politicians and journalists in the latest wave last week.
In simultaneous raids, the Turkish police raided offices and houses of tens of politicians linked with HDP and a group of journalists in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir and other cities. The clampdown has aroused international and national criticism.
Sezai Temelli accused Erdogan of giving the order for the latest move that inflicted a new blow to the party already bleeding in the face of incessant waves of the crackdown. Former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were imprisoned in late 2016 and are still in jail over terrorism charges. Thousands of party members have been jailed over similar charges.
This week saw another phase. The Turkish government has already taken over the administrations of more than 100 Kurdish-run municipalities. The president has repeatedly shown no signs of backing down and signaled a further escalation of crackdown amid armed clashes between Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish security forces.
A fragile truce between the PKK and the Turkish military collapsed in 2015 and renewed urban fighting gave Erdogan additional tools and excuse to crack down on the Kurdish political party which he portrays as the political wing of the armed militants.
The HDP rejects such blanket definitions and refuses association with PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state since the early 1980s to carve out an autonomous zone for self-governance in southeastern Turkey.
A round of peace negotiations in 2015 came to an abrupt end when Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority in Parliament in June 7 elections. When Demirtas cruised HDP to Parliament after an upsetting electoral victory that denied AKP the chance to form another single-party government. HDP’s unexpected triumph appeared to be a turning point after the president altered his policy course regarding the Kurdish conflict and adopted a security-first approach to resolving the decades-old issue.
The military solution, although tried during countless different governments over the past four decades, has ultimately proved to be elusive and untenable. The latest bout of violence reduced cities to rubble in many parts of southeastern Turkey, leading to the displacement of nearly half a million people. Both Human Rights Watch and the United Nations well documented the scale of devastation that swept the entire region, revealing the scope of its social and economic cost in fullest form.
The Economist; Democracy is under threat all around the world.
Democracy is under threat all around the world. There are four stages to dismantling a democracy, starting with a charismatic leader who pledges to save the people pic.twitter.com/w9cIti4AsR
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 7, 2018
Democracy is under threat all around the world. There are four stages to dismantling a democracy, starting with a charismatic leader who pledges to save the people
Source: https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1048785226376392704?s=08
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Persecuting the future: The child victims of Turkey’s purge under Erdogan’s Regime
Children struggle in the prison of Turkey.
The current panel execution law No:5275 reads” imprisonment is adjourned for women who are pregnant or who have not passed 6 months since birth”.
But…
The mothers of 668 babies in jail committed no offense, they are not proven guilty of the offense, and their indictments are not written…
668 children in Turkish Jails… %64 of them are under the age of three…
72 children are waiting for their mothers outside, ages ranging from 8 months old to 14 years old…
13 children drowned in Aegean sea or Evros River…
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International Bar Association Raises Judicial Independence in Turkey to UN
09/28/2018
International Bar Association Raises Judicial Independence in Turkey to UN
In a joint submission with two other groups, the International Bar Association (IBA) raised the issue of independence of judges and judicial independence in Turkey to a special rapporteur from the United Nations.
The dismal state of rule of law and the judiciary in Turkey continues to attract attention from relevant international bodies. In cooperation with the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales and the Law Society of England and Wales, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) submitted a report to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of Judges and Lawyers.
The report mostly focuses on the collapse of the rights and protections regarding the legal profession in a steady way since 2010. But, according to the study, the situation concerns Turkey’s judiciary, judicial independence and other legal rights have dramatically been shredded and worsened since the failed 2016 coup. Both during and after the state of emergency, members of judiciary faced political crackdown and imprisonment en masse.
“Prior to the failed attempt, the Turkish government had been increasingly interfering with, and exercising undue influence over, the legal profession using adverse constitutional and legislative reforms together with systematic attacks against judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other legal professionals,” the study noted.
Since the failed coup, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has only sharpened its clampdown on its social and political opponents, as well as members of the judiciary.
Thousands of military officials, police officers, diplomats, academics, teachers, judges and prosecutors have been dismissed over coup terrorism-related charges with little evidence.
To this date, the report stated that “4,279 judges and prosecutors have been dismissed.”
“Five hundred and ninety lawyers have been arrested, 1,546 prosecuted and 181 convicted.”
Resource:
https://twitter.com/IBAHRI/status/1045312267762487297
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