Abdullah Bozkurt in the Nordic Monitor of 18 May 2022 points out that Turkey is nominating an unsuitable candidate for membership on the UN Human Rights Committee.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has nominated a person with a poor human rights record for membership on the UN Human Rights Committee. According to UN documents Hacı Ali Açıkgül, head of the human rights department at Turkey’s Justice Ministry since 2015, was officially nominated to become one of nine new members of the Human Rights Committee.
Açıkgül, a loyalist and partisan official in the Erdoğan regime, hushed up cases of torture and abuse in Turkey’s detention and prison facilities where many people, including journalists, human rights defenders and activists, were subjected to harsh treatment.
The widespread and systematic practice of torture and abuse is approved by the Erdoğan government as part of an intimidation campaign to silence critical and independent voices in Turkey. Complaints of rights abuse fell on deaf ears, while officials who were involved in ill-treatment and torture were granted impunity.
He issued opinions to challenge complaints filed by victims with the Constitutional Court on violation of fundamental human rights and secretly and illegally coordinated with judges and prosecutors to ensure the continuous imprisonment of government critics. He defended the Erdoğan government in cases brought to the European Court of Human Rights.
Açıkgül used his position in the department not only to bury torture and abuse allegations and complaints, but also helped whitewash them when queried by organizations such as the Council of Europe.
A Turkish court ruled Monday that prominent Turkish civil rights activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala should stay in prison, despite his more than four years in pre-trial detention. The hearing took place as a Council of Europe deadline that could trigger infringement procedures looms. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2019 that Kavala’s rights had been violated and ordered his release. But Turkey has repeatedly refused to do so. Kavala, who is in Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul, did not participate in the hearing in line with an October statement that he would no longer attend trials via video conference because he didn’t have faith the court would deliver a fair trial.
Kavala, 64, is accused of financing nationwide anti-government protests in 2013, attempting to overthrow the government by helping orchestrate a coup attempt three years later and espionage. He denies the charges, which carry a life sentence without parole. He was acquitted in February 2020 of charges in connection with the 2013 Gezi Park protests. As supporters awaited his release, Kavala was rearrested on new charges. The acquittal was later overturned and linked to charges relating to the 2016 coup attempt, which the Turkish government blames on the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who denies any ties to the coup. That trial is now part of a merged case involving 51 other defendants, including fans of the Besiktas soccer club who were acquitted six years ago of charges related to the Gezi protests before that decision also was overturned. Kavala is the only jailed defendant.
“His continued imprisonment for 1,539 days is the continuation of lawlessness identified by the European Court of Human Rights,” Bayraktar his lawyer said. “End this lawlessness today so our client gets his freedom.” In October, Kavala’s case also caused a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and 10 Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, after they called for his release on the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly disdains Kavala, accusing him of being the “Turkish leg” of billionaire US philanthropist George Soros, whom Erdogan alleges has been behind insurrections in many countries. He threatened to expel Western envoys for meddling in Turkey’s internal affairs. The European Court of Human Rights’ 2019 decision said Kavala’s imprisonment aimed to silence him and other human rights defenders and wasn’t supported by evidence of an offense. The Council of Europe, a 47-member bloc that upholds human rights, notified Turkey in December that it intended to refer the case to the court to determine whether Turkey refused to abide by final judgments, which are binding. It called on Turkey to release Kavala immediately and conclude the criminal procedures without delay. It asked Turkey to submit its views by Jan. 19 before a Feb. 2 session of the council. Kavala is the founder of a non-profit organization, Anadolu Kultur, which focuses on cultural and artistic projects promoting peace and dialogue. https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/09/16/osman-kavala-and-mozn-hassan-receive-2020-international-hrant-dink-award/
Living close to Turkey, I follow the situation there perhaps with more worry than others. And nothing good seems to happen:
Turkish police detained three district heads of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and seven others in Istanbul on Friday over alleged links to militants, police said, two days after a court case began over banning the party.
Separately, Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD) co-chairman Ozturk Turkdogan was arrested by police at his home, IHD said, prompting human rights groups to call for his release. Turkdogan was then released on Friday evening, the association said.
Responding to the arrest today of Öztürk Türkdoğan, the president of Turkey’s Human Rights Organisation, Esther Major, Amnesty International’s Senior Research Adviser for Europe, said:
“The detention of Öztürk Türkdoğan is outrageous. With ink barely dry on the Human Rights Action Plan announced by President Erdoğan two weeks ago, his arrest reveals that this document is not worth the paper it is written on.
After over three years in jail without a conviction, one of Turkey’s highest-profile detainees, Osman Kavala, is “not optimistic” that President Tayyip Erdogan’s planned reforms can change a judiciary he says is being used to silence dissidents. A philanthropist, 63-year-old Kavala told Reuters that after decades of watching Turkey’s judiciary seeking to restrict human rights, it was now engaged in “eliminating” perceived political opponents of Erdogan’s government. Kavala was providing written responses via his lawyers to Reuters’ questions days after Erdogan outlined a “Human Rights Action Plan” that was said will strengthen rights to a free trial and freedom of expression. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/09/16/osman-kavala-and-mozn-hassan-receive-2020-international-hrant-dink-award/ and
Not surprisingly this is leading to reactions, such as a bipartisan letter penned by 170 members of the US Congress to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which the lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden’s administration to consider the “troubling human rights abuses” in Turkey. “President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party have used their nearly two decades in power to weaken Turkey’s judiciary, install political allies in key military and intelligence positions, crack down on free speech and (the) free press,” the letter said. Dated 26 February but made public on 1 March, the letter asks Washington to formulate its policy regarding Turkey considering human rights, saying that the Erdogan administration has strained the bilateral relationship.
On top of this Turkey has pulled out of the world’s first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women by presidential decree, in the latest victory for conservatives in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party. The 2011 “Istanbul Convention| [SIC], signed by 45 countries and the European Union, requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation. Conservatives had claimed the charter damages family unity, encourages divorce and that its references to equality were being used by the LGBT community to gain broader acceptance in society. The publication of the decree in the official gazette early Saturday sparked anger among rights groups and calls for protests in Istanbul. Women have taken to the streets in cities across Turkey calling on the government to keep to the 2011 Istanbul Convention.
Gokce Gokcen, deputy chairperson of the main opposition CHP party said abandoning the treaty meant “keeping women second class citizens and letting them be killed.” “Despite you and your evil, we will stay alive and bring back the convention,” she said on Twitter. Last year, 300 women were murdered according to the rights group We Will Stop Femicide Platform. The platform called for a “collective fight against those who dropped the Istanbul convention,” in a message on Twitter. “The Istanbul convention was not signed at your command and it will not leave our lives on your command,” its secretary general Fidan Ataselim tweeted.
Kerem Altiparmak, an academic and lawyer specializing in human rights law, likened the government’s shredding of the convention to the 1980 military coup. “What’s abolished tonight is not only the Istanbul convention but the parliament’s will and legislative power,” he commented.
Simon Tisdall – in a strongly-worded opinion piece in the Guardian of 3 January 2021 entitled “‘Global Britain’ is willing to trade away everything. Including scruples” – attacks the UK’s new deal with Turkey which ignores its appalling human rights abuses and should have been scrutinised by parliament
Turkey’s ‘strongman’ president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hailed the trade deal with Britain as the start of a ‘new era’. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Sun 3 Jan 2021 07.00 GMT
The UK’s new trade agreement with Turkey, signed last week, ignores the Turkish government’s continuing human rights abuses, boosts its dangerous president, and undermines ministerial pledges that “global Britain” will uphold international laws and values. The deal took effect on 1 January without even rudimentary parliamentary scrutiny. Here, stripped of lies and bombast, is the dawning reality of Boris Johnson’s scruple-free post-Brexit world.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s “strongman” leader, is pleased as punch. He’s the new, biggest fan of Britain’s international trade secretary, Liz Truss, whose shabby work this is. Erdoğan hailed the deal as the start of a “new era” and a landmark for Turkey. After years of disastrous economic mismanagement and fierce rows with the US and EU over Turkish policy towards Russia, Syria, Libya, Greece and Cyprus, Erdoğan badly needed a win. Hapless Truss delivered….
This rushed deal rides roughshod over widely shared human rights concerns. It may be naive to think that the agreement, which replicates existing EU-Turkey arrangements, would allow matters of principle to imperil £18.6bn in two-way trade. Yet Britain is Turkey’s second-largest export market. Ankara was desperate to maintain tariff-free access. This gave Johnson and Truss leverage. It was a sovereign moment. But they failed to demand that Erdoğan change his ways.
Alive to these and similar problems relating to other post-Brexit trade partners, the House of Lords amended the government’s Trade Bill last month to require human rights risk assessments when making agreements – to ensure compliance with the UK’s international treaties and obligations. But the government is expected to scrap the amendment when the bill returns to the Commons. The Turkey deal contains no such safeguards.
In its scramble to replace lapsed EU arrangements, Johnson’s government has so far “rolled over” about 30 existing trade deals. Like the Turkey deal, they have not faced thorough parliamentary scrutiny. The list includes other countries or entities with contentious human rights records, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Bilateral deals with notorious rights abusers such as China and Saudi Arabia have not been attempted – yet…
This lucrative business, or the prospect of losing it, may help explain the haste in finalising the Turkey deal. Yet the fact that Erdoğan stands accused of using British-made equipment and technology to repress domestic opponents, attack Syria’s Kurds, intervene in Libya’s civil war, and stoke the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict should have given serious pause. These actions run contrary to British interests, as does Erdoğan’s trouble-making in the eastern Mediterranean. Yet Johnson’s government, ever mindful of its Brexit needs, has kept its head down.
Full and timely parliamentary scrutiny of post-Brexit trade deals would help bring such omissions and contradictions to light – but is sadly lacking, as Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, said in November. She accused the government of “sheer bumbling incompetence” after Greg Hands, the trade minister, admitted there was not enough time for MPs to scrutinise trade deals before the 31 December deadline. So much for a sovereign parliament “taking back control” of Britain’s destiny and laws.
The Turkey deal illustrates a bigger, fundamental hypocrisy. Extolling a future “global Britain” in 2019, foreign secretary Dominic Raab promised that “once we’ve left the EU … human rights abusers anywhere in the world will face consequences for their actions”. In January 2020, Raab assured the Commons that “a truly global Britain is about more than just international trade and investment … Global Britain is also about continuing to uphold our values of liberal democracy and our heartfelt commitment to the international rule of law.”
Raab seems to mean well, but ne’er-do-wells such as Erdoğan are laughing fit to burst. Raab’s recent imposition of sanctions on individual rights abusers in Russia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere does not affect the bigger picture. It is of a British government hellbent on cutting hasty, ill-considered deals with all manner of undesirable customers around the world, without proper regard for the political, legal, strategic and human consequences. And to think Tory aristocrats used to look down on trade.
Asfreeas Jafri in Politics, of 14th July, 2020 wrote a fascinating opinion piece which I think deserves more attention. It is mostly about India but has wider implications: for ease of reference here the full text:
One complaint I often get from friends is that I say very “offensive” things online. My Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they accuse, are filled with the same sad and angry words against Islamophobia. Although despite my repetitive rants, they continue to ignore the agony of these words.
On July 10, 2020, the Turkish president announced that Hagia Sophia would be a mosque again.
Amongst other things, I am accused of being biased. Also, I am accused to be writing for a vested agenda. Usually, my Hindu friends make these allegations since I write a lot about the persecution of Indian Muslims. However, recently I noticed Muslim friends on social media making the same kind of accusations against those who expressed displeasure at the conversion of Hagia Sofia into a mosque.[ see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/07/06/the-unholy-wisdom-of-invoking-sovereignty/]
A few days back, some of them were irked after being questioned for running a homophobic WhySoProud trend on Twitter. This time the allegation against those Muslims who opposed this conversion is that they are doing this to please “Hindu liberals”.
Those who make these charges are undermining our agency and reason. It is insulting for me to think that what I and several other Muslims write, is not out of our individual agency and free will. When someone as outspoken as Umar Khalid is accused of doing that by several Muslims, I feel that we need to introspect.
The attackers are overlooking Umar’s incisive critique of Islamophobia in the Indian left. Muslims who are opposed to this are being called apologetic. I never pledged allegiance to the new sultan of Turkey. Not calling out Erdogan’s vile actions or political gimmicks does not fill any Muslims with a sense of vicarious guilt, at least in front of people we are allegedly supposed to be pleasing. But to say that those who dislike Erdogan are apologetic is quite irresponsible.
I will any day stand with someone like Umar Khalid who has been a constant ally in the fight against Islamophobia, rather than choosing a faraway ‘Sultan’ who is hardly bothered about the existence of Indian Muslims. It is people like Umar whose strong and sharp words have made young Muslims more unapologetic and bothered about their rights than their predecessors.
The other charge was against those liberals who wanted schools and hospitals on that disputed land, some congress leaders and “practising Hindu atheist” liberals like Dhruv Rathee who had strongly supported the Ayodhya verdict but are now opposed to Erdogan’s move. To many people’s shock, they had claimed that the Ayodhya verdict was respectable to all sides and that it will put a halt to the hate against Muslims. It did not halt. It actually increased.
I agree that this hypocrisy should be called out but when you also support either of the two majoritarian displays of power, are you not a hypocrite too? Also, what about those who have been vehemently opposed to the demolition and protested the SC verdict on Ayodhya? Do they have the right to comment on this?
Some found the comparison of Hagia Sofia with Babri Masjid as problematic. They said that it is not as bad in Turkey as it is in India. Umar rightly asks, ‘are we waiting for it to be that bad?’ Babri was illegally demolished and mobs killed hundreds. The history of these two events is different but what makes the comparison fair is how the Indian and Turkish governments and judiciary ignored the sentiment of the Muslim and Christian minorities. That the majoritarian will become the conscience of the state is starkly similar in both these cases.
As per media reports, Christians were blamed for spreading Coronavirus in Turkey. Consequently, some churches were attacked. The Christian community has faced mysterious disappearances and deaths, attacks and propaganda in recent years.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recently, a group of Erdogan backed lawyers published an article to “redo” what happened in Armenia. As somebody who often hears Hindutva extremists warning to repeat 2002, which they eventually did in North East Delhi earlier this year, I understand the consequences of these hateful words. The increasing murderous hate attacks on Kurds in Erdogan’s Turkey are known to everybody except those who deny the Armenian genocide.
Erdogan supporters see him as the emperor of the neo-Ottoman empire. The majority rallies behind his brand of Islamic nationalism. Through a constitutional referendum, he has vested immense new authority in himself. Institutions look timid. Rogue opposition is either tamed or jailed. Rivals have been pushed into a tunnel of silence.
The pandemic was used to target the feeble opposition while political prisoners languishing in jails were given no relief. Amnesty International observed that rivals have been targeted using anti-terror laws during the pandemic.
Apart from the political opposition, universities, intellectuals, writers and journalists have invited the severe wrath of the Sultan. Many “Anti-national” academics have lost their jobs in recent years. Many renowned Human rights defenders and lawyers are behind bars.
Ever since the failed coup, suspicion and divisions amongst the Turks has reached new heights. The recent losses in elections, a growing economic crisis and waning popularity of the ruling party are being seen as the reasons behind these desperate populist decisions.
Many wrote that the mosque was “bought” by the Ottomans centuries ago. I did not want to argue about that since copies of the receipt in modern digital font and scanned PDFs of the transaction are easily available on WhatsApp! Several individuals shared stories of Israel, Greece and Spain converting mosques into other structures. This was followed by “where were you then” and whataboutery. Ironically, if you are opposed to what the aforesaid nations did, then you should be opposed to what Turkey did as well.
At the same, I also acknowledge that the western media and academia in the post-cold war world villainised Islam and Muslims. The “Muslim victim” did not fit into the “war on terror” narrative pushed by the west.
The attack on Islam and Muslims did not receive the same kind of recognition or outrage, and was side-lined. Writers like Chomsky and Edward Said have noted the West’s white-washing of its crimes in that part of the world and its malicious contempt for Islam. This has increased anti-West hostility in that region.
A few months ago, I read a blog post while casually scrolling on social media. A young Erdogan critic made a very significant point which I think should be thought about more in the above-mentioned context. He said that as long as the western standards of Human rights will be limited to the people living on the American soil, as long as the west hates on ordinary refugees and working-class innocent Muslims, as long as the occupation and Persecution of Palestine are seen as Israel’s sovereign right, as long as people deny what the US did to ordinary Iraqis, people in the Middle East will continue to invest in defenders who eventually oppress.
In December, while protesting the CAA at Jantar Mantar, I spoke to the Wire and NDTV. That video went viral on social media. It was shared by hundreds of Muslims in Pakistan including actress Mehwish Hayat.
On that thread, many Pakistanis had expressed solidarity with Indian Muslims. I replied to one of the comments, “The best Pakistani Muslims can do in the interest of Indian Muslims is to set a good example for India’s Hindus by treating their minorities well.”
It angered a lot of people. They replied with “Thank you Jinnah” taunts. Many users made the same comments on Indian Muslim handles after the Delhi violence.
What were they actually mocking? They were mocking the fact that Indian Muslims refused to go to Pakistan to be a majority and instead chose to live as a minority in India. This also suggests that they believe minority persecution is natural and that Indian Muslims missed an opportunity to be a persecuting majority. The recent demolition of a Hindu religious structure in Islamabad or the post-Babri demolitions and attack on Hindu religious sites in Pakistan and Bangladesh describe majoritarian solidarity aptly.
On the recent Krishna temple debate, I saw an interesting thread on Twitter where a Pakistani Muslim was explaining it to a Pakistani Hindu that Temples are not essential to the faith20 of Hinduism while mosques are essential to the faith of Islam.
People demolishing the Babri Masjid.
In India, the judiciary applied the same principle to say that mosques are not necessary for prayers. This opens a door to another important debate: Are laws merely a manifestation of the majoritarian interpretation of morality and righteousness?
Even in the West, the so-called cradle of secularism, minorities face rampant discrimination and attacks. The recent murder of George Floyd in broad daylight attests to that. The need of the hour is strong debate around majoritarianism. It must gain global momentum.
As long as we are afraid of losing friends and being unpopular, such a debate is not possible. Right now, our only “agenda” is to rattle our people’s numbed conscience. We need to be courageous to be truthful. Sometimes, we have to offend those who like us when we offend others.
When violence becomes an everyday character of society, when irrationality overpowers reasons, when cruelty is seen defence, when injustice flows in a people’s vein, when malice rules their heads, oppression pleases their hearts and vulgarity embeds itself in their “proud” nation’s soul, writers are bound to protest, annoy, and be repetitive in what they write.
“We will never resort to seeking your permission or your consent,” he said last month in a retort to warnings from other countries on the Hagia Sophia. “Do you rule Turkey, or do we?”
Moreover, in order to change its status, a decision will have to be made by the Unesco intergovernmental committee. The Art Newspaper understands that the date of Unesco’s next committee meeting has not been set. Unesco declined to comment further regarding the Turkish government’s plans but Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, Unesco’s assistant director for culture, told Greek press last month that “before any decision can be taken to change the status of a Cultural Heritage Monument, such as Hagia Sophia, a decision of the relevant Unesco intergovernmental committee is required”. He added that Unesco had written to Turkish authorities in June outlining its concerns but had not yet received a reply.
On 16 December 2019 Sean Ingle wrote in the Guardian “Craven Arsenal abandon Mesut Özil over his stance on China’s Uighur persecution“. He argued that the midfielder is in tune with human rights groups over the imprisonment of millions of Uighurs but the club chose to raise a white flag. The incident touches on more than the freedom of expression of an individual player. ‘Sports washing’ (see earlier posts: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/sports-washing/) is a widespread phenomenon to which Arsenal itself in no stranger. It plays in the Emirates Stadium and in Emirates T-shirts (in a 280 million $ deal) without ever mentioning Ahmed Mansoor the UAE’s most prominent political prisoner [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/06/07/ahmed-mansoor-ten-years-jail-for-tweeting-and-a-street-named-after-you/]
A demonstrator in Istanbul holds up a picture of Arsenal’s Mesut Özil who expressed his horror at China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Photograph: Kemal Aslan/Reuters
On the Chinese social media site Weibo Arsenal quicly posted that Özil’s comments were merely his “personal opinion” and reminding that “Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics”. The article nicely quotes Simon Chadwick, a professor of sports enterprise at Salford University who specialises in China: “The world is in the midst of an ideological battle: western liberalism versus eastern authoritarianism. And sport is one of the front lines.”
Also saying it is just a personal opinion, seems a bit much: Özil was entirely in tune with a United Nations panel and multiple human rights groups who have spoken out about the imprisonment of millions of Uighur people in internment camps without trial for “re-education” in what has been described as the largest incarceration of one ethnic group since the Holocaust, with multiple accounts of torture, rape and abuse from eyewitnesses who have passed through.
Celebrities have been criticised for NOT speaking out when they insist on touring human rights violating regimes (e.g. only last week Anthony Joshua was widely criticised for not speaking out about human rights in Saudi Arabia and Mariah Carey in July this year [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/07/10/nicki-minaj-did-the-right-thing-and-cancelled-her-performance-in-saudi-arabia/]. Sean Ingle states” Yet can you blame sportspeople for staying quiet when they see Özil bravely raising his head above the parapet only to be shot down by his own club? As for Arsenal not involving themselves in politics, what did the club think they were doing when they agreed a £30m deal with the Rwandan government to promote tourism?
It would seem that what is ‘political’ is mostly determined by the sensitivity and power of the country being targeted. And in the case of China there is very little margin. Whether it is the according of awards to dissidents or accepting statements on Hong Kong by NBA officials [see more generally: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2012/12/06/china-and-its-amazing-sensitivity-on-human-rights-defenders/]. As Sean Ingle stated: The decision by CCTV not to show Arsenal’s match against Manchester City is another reminder that there is no middle ground here. No way to stick up for human rights and free speech without angering China. You are either for such values or against them.
Riot police break the main entrance of the İpek Media Group headquarters in İstanbul during the raid in 2015
The Nordic Monitor of 2 September 2019 carries an interesting and detailed piece on way the Turkish regime is using a court order – and judges sympathtic to it – to seize assets from its opponents:
In a new sign of the intimidation of regime opponents, an Islamist judge in Turkey ruled to seize the assets of exiled critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, new documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed. The decision confirms how plunder has become part of the persecution pursued against these people, with the government unlawfully seizing the wealth of critics who live abroad.
In August 2016 Antalya 1st Criminal Court of Peace judge İbrahim Altınkaynak, a graduate of an imam-hatip (religious school) in the Kumluca district of southern Antalya province, ordered the seizure of all assets of US-based Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, a vocal critic of Erdoğan over pervasive corruption and the government’s aiding and abetting of armed jihadist groups in Syria and other countries.
Moreover, the court listed 102 Erdoğan critics who have been forced to live in exile or who remain at large in Turkey to escape the regime’s persecution. The judge ordered the transfer of their assets including real estate, chattel goods, bank accounts, intellectual property and other financial assets to the Treasury.
The Turkish government used a state of emergency to intervene and restrict all fundamental human rights after a coup attempt in July 2016. In order to impoverish exiled dissidents including writers, journalists, businessmen, doctors, academics and human rights defenders, the court confiscated all their assets in a blatant abuse of the state of emergency. In Altınkaynak’s decision, Articles 247 and 248 of the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMUK) were not applied in line with Article 3 (1) (b) of emergency decree no 668. In fact, Articles 247 and 248 of the code describe the seizure of property as a temporary measure.
Altınkaynak violated Articles 35 and 38 of the Turkish Constitution by ordering confiscation under an emergency decree that was not in force at the time. According to Article 35 of the constitution, Turkish nationals have “the right to own and inherit property, and these rights may be limited by law only in view of the public interest.” Furthermore, Article 38 underlines “penalties or security measures in lieu of penalties shall be prescribed only by law.” Article 38 also makes clear that “no one shall be punished for any act that does not constitute a criminal offense under the law in force at the time committed; no one shall be given a heavier penalty for an offense other than the penalty applicable at the time when the offense was committed.”
Moreover, the emergency degree itself and the decision of the Turkish court were in violation of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the right to property. According to Article 1 of the protocol, “every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.”
It is obvious that emergency decree 668 aimed at plundering the assets of Erdoğan critics does not comply with the necessities of democratic societies or the general principles of international law. The decisions were often taken by Islamist and ultranationalist judges and prosecutors who were transformed into tools of state-sanctioned plunder after the dismissal of more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors since 2016.
The documents revealed that people affiliated with the Gülen movement were not allowed to enjoy due process and fair trial protections and were treated as pariahs and outside the law in Turkey. The assets and wealth of individuals, corporations and organizations that were seen as affiliated with the movement were branded as war spoils open to plunder. Similar to Nazi Germany, their property was divided up among Erdoğan’s Islamists and their collaborators. The assets of Gülen-affiliated entities such as schools, universities, media outlets, companies and apartment buildings were confiscated or stolen by new owners.
Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has taken over 885 private companies including major conglomerates such as Boydak Holding, the Koza Ipek Group, Kaynak Holding and Naksan Holding, valued at close to TL 60 billion ($10.5 billion), since 2015. No figures were available verifying how much personal wealth and how many assets were seized through the Erdoğan government’s use of the partisan judiciary.
Instead of the Turkish Constitution and the principles of international law, a political Islamist approach with jihadist undertones has become the main source of motivation for Erdoğan’s judges and prosecutors. In an introductory video of the Kumluca Imam-Hatip school, Altınkaynak underlined the fact that the principles of imam-hatip schools have guided his professional life and judicial decisions. His social media posts are also embellished with Islamist and nationalist rhetoric.
Radical Turkish clerics who endorse Erdoğan help fuel a hostility in Turkey against the president’s critics and opponents, justifying torture and ill treatment of innocent people who are merely exercising their right to dissent. For example, at a rally held in front of Erdoğan’s house in Istanbul, a jihadist cleric named Abdülmetin Balkanlıoğlu publicly said that the assets seized from the Gülen movement were spoils of war for Muslims to enjoy. Balkanlıoğlu, who died in 2018, had links to jihadist groups in Syria and advocated the view that Muslims in Syria were battling the US, Russia and China and urged them to martyr themselves as part of the jihad.
Abdülmetin Balkanlıoğlu (L) and Nureddin Yıldız.
Another radical pro-Erdoğan cleric, Nureddin Yıldız, a man who has openly endorsed jihadist wars from Syria to China and is seen as very close to Erdoğan’s family, advocated the view that members of the Gülen movement must be executed — hanged and their arms and legs cut off.
The defendants in the sham case who were victims of asset seizure were listed by the Antalya 1st Criminal Court of Peace as Abdülkadir Koluçolak, Ahmet Çakmak, Alper İvecan, Burak Güller, Emrah Alagan, Feyyat İliman, Fikret Karyağdi, Hamza Göktaş, Hüseyin Girişken, İslam Ülker, Mehmet Uzun, Murat Doğan, Osman Direk, Ömer Akgün, Ridvan Demir, Sefa Öyke, Suphi Kiliç, Ufuk Atilgan, Yusuf Karabulut, Ahmet Yildirim, Nurettin Adigüzel, Erkan Kacir, Mustafa Akbulut, Emrah Abika, Murat Balaban, Muhammet Sertdemir, Zübeyir Selman Kahraman, Ender Vural, Abdülhalim Kökyay, Murat Değer, Celil Durmaz, Ahmet Sözgen, Ramazan Keskin, Ismail Şahin, Salih Karan, Yavuz Keskin, Turhan Negiz, Hüseyin Kaya, Hüseyin Bal, Mehmet Menderes Keskin, Cezmi Atan, Şeref Ünal, Tacittin Karataş, Mehmet Özdemir, Ramazan Altuntaş, Ibrahim Dolgun, Ramazan Örtülü, Cevdettin Serik, Halil Ersoy, Mustafa Ayanoğlu, Mustafa Karadağ, Eyyup Sabri Hamamcioğlu, Orhan Özkelle,Tuba Tüzemen, Abdi Durna, Elif Akkaya, Ayşenur Sezgin, Murat Sakartepe, Fetullah Gülen, Hasan Tarik Şen, Hasan Yilmaz, Saim Yuva, Arif Orhan, Hilmi Ünal, Mehmet Yaşa, Mustafa Yeşil, Ahmet Çiçek, Abdülkadir Yükselen, Abdullah Alniak, Ebu Ubeyde Seven, Mehmet Haş, Süleyman Çoban, Tacittin Akçakuş, Mehmet Ali Çoban, Ekrem Ünal Sevindik, Hasan Şahin, Hüseyin Tulpar, Kazim Sönmez, Mehmet Kafas, Mehmet Ihsan Öner, Nurullah Özbaş, Seyfullah Gürdal, Zekeriya Öner, Ismet Akil, Ahmet Güler, Ender Ileriye, Ergün Gürzal, Izzet Bayar, Ridvan Candemir, Serdar Gür, Salih Bayram Akinci, Ibrahim Şahin, Mehmet Ali Söyler, Mehmet Çelik, Halit Ünver, Kadir Sari, Sezai Ergün Ünal, Adil Baş, Osman Saritaş, Soner Taker, Oğuz Küçükzengin, Hüseyin Özçelik and Yahya Karadeniz.
None of the defendants had any criminal record, and they were all the subjects of prosecution because of their affiliation with the Gülen movement.
On 6 February 2019 is became known that a public prosecutor has sought the maximum prison sentence of 15 years for each of 33 lawyers on charges of membership in a terrorist organization due to their alleged links to the faith-based civic Gülen movement, the T24 news website reported on Tuesday. On Tuesday the trial of 53 defendants, 52 of whom are lawyers, continued at the Ankara 22nd High Criminal Court.
[Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown as a result of which more than 150,000 people were removed from state jobs while in excess of 50,000 others were jailed and some 600,000 people have been investigated on allegations of terrorism.]
According to data compiled by independent monitoring site The Arrested Lawyers’ Initiative, 555 lawyers have been arrested since July 15, 2016 and 1,546 were under prosecution as of January 24, 2019. Two hundred sixteen lawyers have been sentenced to a total of 1,361 years in prison. Some of the arrested lawyers were reportedly subjected to torture and ill treatment. Fourteen of the detained or arrested lawyers are presidents or former presidents of provincial bar associations.
And it is not limited to lawyers. A Turkish court sentenced a judge who previously won an award for human rights to 10 years in prison over links to the network Ankara says orchestrated an attempted coup in 2016, the state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Friday. Murat Arslan, who has been detained for 22 months, was convicted of membership in an armed terrorist organisation, after prosecutors charged him with use of the encrypted messaging app ByLock, Anadolu said. Arslan has denied the charges and said any evidence that he had used the app was “fabricated”, Anadolu said.
The government says the outlawed app was widely used by followers of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it blames for the attempted coup that saw rogue soldiers commandeer tanks and aircraft, attacking parliament and killing some 250 unarmed civilians. The Council of Europe human rights body in 2017 gave Arslan, who was detained at the time, the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, a decision that prompted Turkey to say it would cut back its funding to the body. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2017/10/18/turkey-angry-after-pace-havel-prize-is-awarded-to-jailed-judge/]
Korur Fincancı was one of more than 1,000 Turkish academics who signed a 2016 petition calling for peace after a two-year ceasefire between the government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) broke down and security forces used tanks and artillery to crush attempts by the militants to seize towns and cities across the mainly Kurdish southeast. Now the head of Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for signing the petition and for her contribution to a report prepared by her foundation on the Turkish military’s activities in the southeastern town of Cizre.
……The figures show an alarming trend that Korur Fincancı said pointed to systematic rights violations. “In the year 2017, more than 5,000 people across Turkey applied for legal aid from the Human Rights Association on the basis that they’d been tortured. More than 500 applied to representatives of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey to be diagnosed … for torture,” she said. The number of applicants remained high in 2018, with more than 2,600 people who said they had been tortured applying for legal aid and 558 applying for treatment in the first 11 months of the year.
….Korur Fincancı she said the fight against torture must extend beyong medical treatment to preventative measures, and that means educating the public.
…Meanwhile, security forces have opened 26,000 cases against suspects they say resisted arrest. “After police launch cases against them, people become hesitant to open (torture) cases … or the withdraw them. Thus the judiciary protects the police, the use of torture with legal repercussions becomes more entrenched, and the police believe they are doing their duty under this protection,” said the doctor.
With the introduction of emergency rule after the coup, the purge and arrest of public officials has come to be counted as part of a struggle against terrorism, providing another layer of protection for security officers who commit torture and other infractions. “And this arrangement applies to civilians – it’s the same as telling security officers we are in a state of civil war and their actions will be ignored,” Korur Fincancı said. “And that’s a very dangerous situation.”
State of emergency
Anyway, ending the state of emergency in Turkey has not ended repressive rule under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Human Rights Watch observed on 17 January 2019 in its World Report 2019. Prolonged and arbitrary jailing of critics on bogus terrorism charges has become the norm in Turkey. Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections in June 2018 took place in a climate of media censorship and with some members of parliament and one presidential candidate jailed. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) retained control of a weakened parliament through a coalition. And with the election, in which Erdoğan was reelected, Turkey’s presidential system of governance, approved in a 2017 constitutional referendum, entered fully into force. “Any hope that the end of the state of emergency six month ago would mark a return to respect for human rights has been dashed,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Erdoğan government’s hounding of its critics and opponents has dismantled Turkey’s rule of law framework and turned justice on its head.”
The Deutsche Welle (DW) Freedom of Speech Award 2016 goes to Turkish ‘Hürriyet’ journalist Sedat Ergin. The DW prize is awarded annually to journalists who stand out in their fight for human rights and free speech. The award ceremony will on 13 June 2016 at the Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany. Read the rest of this entry »
ts and free speech. The award ceremony will on 13 June 2016 at the Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany. 
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 