Turkey:Ηuman rights violations ...

Big jump in human rights violations in Turkey, activist says

Friday, May 27, 2011

ΠΗΓΗ:

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Human rights violations in Turkey’s east and southeast have risen dramatically, an activist said Friday, comparing the number of incidents in the first four months of this year to the figures from five years ago.

Some 11,340 human rights violations allegedly occurred in the region in the first four months of 2011, compared to 4,507 in the same period of 2006, the Diyarbakır branch secretary of the Human Rights Association told a group of journalists at a press conference in Istanbul’s Taksim Hill hotel.

“These figures include unsolved murders, torture [incidents], people who lost their lives in prison due to not receiving medical treatment and those who died in conflicts with the police in protests,” Raci Bilici said. He also claimed that about 800 people had been tortured in the region over the past four months.

“At least, this is the number of those [tortured] who applied to our association [for help],” he said. According to Bilici, people physically mistreated in the region cannot even receive medical treatment because they would be detained when they reported their condition to a hospital.

“Anyone who opposes, including people who struggle for human rights, are detained and arrested,” Bilici said, claiming that about 750 people had been arrested in the last four months. “These people are all human rights defenders, who struggle for freedom and democracy.”

Bilici spoke at a press meeting organized by a delegation from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Society, or BDP, and civil-society representatives from the region. The delegation will travel around the country to, they say, objectively inform the press on the situation in the country’s East and Southeast.

Kurdish people have been left without a status for a very long time, which might lead to instability in the region, Diyarbakır Mayor Abdullah Demirbaş said in his speech at the event. “Unless a solution is found to the Kurdish issue, all of us will be in trouble,” he said

“The Kurds are now organized people, who will keep struggling for their cause. There is no other alternative [than solving the Kurdish issue],” said Filiz Koçali, the BDP’s general co-chair and the head of the delegation.

Few members of the press attended the meeting, where members of the delegation called on media outlets to be fair and reflect the truth in their reports about events in the region

***

(Ο τίτλος της αναρτήσεως,οι ''υπογραμμίσεις'' -χρώμα,μέγεθος γραμματοσειράς και οι εικονογραφήσεις - με εικόνες από το World Wide Web-στις αναρτήσεις γίνονται με ευθύνη του blogger'')