TURKEY: ...Political and Human Rights !



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Some 32 Turkish soldiers committed suicide for “suspicious reasons” during their compulsory military services, according to a statistical study by a the Rights of Conscripts Initiative, a group backed by the Human Rights Watch, Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly and other rights groups in Turkey.
The report relies on 432 former soldiers’ claims of maltreatment endured during their military services. The report revealed the first statistical report on human rights violations committed against soldiers in the Turkish Armed Forces in 2012.Some 48 percent of applications included complaints of insults, while 39 percent of applications included complaints of beatings. Some 16 percent of applications included complaints of forced excessive physical activity and 15 percent of applications included complaints of denial of access to proper health care.
Applications were received through the website askerhaklari.com for alleged violations of rights during compulsory military service in the period between April 25, 2011 and April 24, 2012. Ankara, Turkish Cyprus and Izmir placed at the top of the list where Conscript made applications for maltreatment.

''Rights violations in Turkish Army listed''
Του Erdem Güneş
                                                                                                                                                     Πηγή
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
rights-violations-in-turkish-army-listed.aspx?
pageID=238&nid=32330



The report relies on 432 ex-soldiers’ claims of maltreatment during army services. 

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‘Suicides soar in Turkish armed forces’ 

INSTABUL:Beatings and the humiliation of Turkish conscripts by their supervising officers have led to an alarming rate of suicide in the armed forces, a rights group says.
Asker Haklari, or Soldiers’ Rights, has published accounts from soldiers telling of violence, usually by officers, and impunity for the offenders. The reports have triggered a debate about what has been a touchy subject in a country where many see the military as a source of pride, not least because it played a vital role in the founding of the republic in 1923.
“It is a problem that every male conscript suffers from and knows about,” Kerem Ciftcioglu, an activist with Asker Haklari, said this month.
In recent years, Turkey’s military has lost much of its political power through reforms and has come under closer public scrutiny because of alleged coup plans among its ranks, but it remains the country’s most trusted institution, according to opinion polls.
The new debate about abuse in the military is significant because millions of Turks have served in the army.
Conscripts make up about 500,000 of the 600,000 soldiers in the Turkish military, Nato’s second biggest fighting force after the US armed forces. Regular conscripts serve a 15-month term, with university graduates serving six months.
As a result of complaints collected by Asker Haklari, parliament’s human rights committee took up the issue of abuse in the armed forces. Last month, the committee shocked the nation by saying that the number of suicides by privates during the past 10 years was higher than the number of soldiers killed in the war against Kurdish rebels over the same period.
Ayhan Sefer Ustun, the committee chairman, said 934 soldiers had taken their own lives. “In the past 10 years, 818 members of the Turkish Armed Forces have become martyrs,” Ustun said. “These figures are unacceptable.”
Ciftcioglu of Asker Haklari said the group had collected more than 1,000 complaints from conscripts since April 2011 and that numbers were rising fast.
According to a report by the group, almost one out of two complaints included insults against conscripts by superiors, 39 per cent mentioned beatings and other kinds of physical violence, 16 per cent dealt with harassment and 13 per cent mentioned threats.
Ciftcioglu said action by his group is specifically directed at regular conscripts. “We are not addressing the usual suspects in the democracy movement, we are focusing on normal soldiers,” he said.
Asker Haklari’s recommendations to solve the problem overlapped with demands for more democracy in Turkey, Ciftcioglu said. He said the group supported calls for a stronger civilian oversight of the military, the abolition of the military justice system, the introduction of an ombudsman system within the armed forces, and demands for the protection of rights of conscientious objectors.
“There is a total unaccountability and hopelessness,” Ciftcioglu said. Abused soldiers had no place to turn to. “They need to be able to complain about this.”
The military has responded by arguing that problems within the army reflected social problems in Turkey as a whole, stressing that most suicides of soldiers were related to drug abuse and family problems.
But Ciftcioglu said a comparison with official figures showed that the suicide rate among conscripts was 2.71 times higher than that of young men in Turkey in general.

 26-12-2012

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-1-150496-Suicides-soar-in-Turkish-armed-forces

''MIDNIGHT EXPRESS''

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MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
1734 πέθαναν στις τουρκικές φυλακές από το 2002!


 Ο υπουργός Δικαιοσύνης Σαντουλάχ Εργκίν σε απάντηση επερώτησης του βουλευτή της αξιωματικής αντιπολίτευσης (CHP) Χουσεΐν Αϊγκούν, πόσοι κρατούμενοι στις φυλακές έχασαν τη ζωή τους τα τελευταία 10 χρόνια, ο υπουργός απάντησε ότι οι κατάδικοι που πέθαναν στις φυλακές από το 2002 έως σήμερα, ανέρχονται στους 1734.
Έτσι απλά σαν να μιλάμε για κολοκύθες. Και αυτή η χώρα ζητάει να μπει στην Ε.Ε.ενώ σε εμάς κάτι τυχάρπαστες Μ.Κ.Ο αμφιβόλου χρηματοδότησης μας ονομάζουν Κολομβία της Ευρώπης, και άλλα γελοία,και ότι παραβιάζονται τα ανθρώπινα δικαιώματα! Προφανώς στην Τουρκία κόβονται στο "ξύρισμα" και έτσι εξηγείται ο αριθμός των θανόντων.

 Πηγή
www.defencenet.gr 






(3)

Does Turkey deserve this shame?

We are engaged in the debate on how many journalists in Turkey are jailed for two reasons. 
Firstly, to defend the professional and personal rights of those journalists who have been jailed accused of being terrorists, when the real reason is that their journalistic activity was simply not acceptable in the eyes of the government. In other words, we do so to stand up against injustice. 
Secondly, because we know that keeping quiet in the face of labeling journalists “terrorists” is an invitation for more journalists to be arrested and for press freedom to be further violated.
When the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the New York-based press freedom institution, showed that there were only eight journalists in Turkey jailed for their journalistic activities in its prison census of December 2011, we all rose against it because of the two reasons cited above. 
Fortunately, the CPJ later corrected its mistake. 
In a special report it issued on Turkey last October, they said there were 76 journalists currently in prison in this country, with 61 of these jailed because of their journalistic activities. Afterwards, they also apologized. 
The other day the CPJ issued its Prison Census 2012, which declared that Turkey was “the champion of imprisoning journalists,” with a total of 49 jailed journalists. 
Meanwhile, the CPJ, which determined that there were 61 jailed journalists on Aug. 1, 2012, lowered this figure to 49 in its latest report issued Dec. 11, 2012. One day before the CPJ report was officially issued, Kanaltürk TV’s Ankara representative Faruk Mercan announced on his Twitter account an interesting phrase from Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin. The tweet said the following: “Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin told journalists today in Parliament: ‘The CPJ will correct the number of arrested journalists in its report to 49.’” 
Truly, when the report was issued, the figure was “49,” but this was not a “correction.” 
According to information that reached the CPJ between Aug. 1 and Dec. 1, among those journalists determined to have been imprisoned because of their journalistic activities, 16 have been released. Meanwhile, new journalists were arrested. With additions and deductions, the number jailed went down from 61 to 49.
If the esteemed minister really used the expression that was stated in Faruk Mercan’s tweet, “the CPJ has corrected its mistake,” then he gives the impression that he was consoling himself because 49 is lower than 61.
Well, it makes no difference here. Turkey is still the world champion, even with the number 49. It does this by overtaking oppressive, authoritarian regimes such as Iran (45), China (32) and Eritrea (28).
Does Turkey deserve this shame? 
As CPJ Director Joel Simons has additionally written on the issue: “Turkey has no business being the world’s leading jailer of journalists. But the numbers don’t lie … The charges are obviously serious, which is why CPJ spent months this year reviewing the case files to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations. There was not, we concluded. In fact, in many cases the evidence consisted of journalistic activity such as published articles, interviews, phone calls, and notes.” 
According to the CPJ Director, repressive policies toward the media are putting at risk Turkey’s broader strategic goals - such as asserting regional leadership, attaining European integration and retaining global investor confidence in the rule of law. 
Kadri Gürsel is a columnist for daily Milliyet in which this piece was published on Dec. 13. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.
December/14/2012

KADRİ GÜRSEL
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/does-turkey-deserve-this-shame-.aspx?pageID=449&nID=36806&NewsCatID=413
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