Human rights body says definition of terrorism too vague in Turkey

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued an extensive report in which it strongly criticized Turkey for its handling of cases opened against individuals who took part in protests organized or supported by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The 75-page report, titled “Protesting as a Terrorist Offense: The Arbitrary Use of Terrorism Laws to Prosecute and Incarcerate Demonstrators in Turkey,” said “legal amendments since 2005, along with case law since 2008, have allowed courts in Turkey to convict demonstrators under the harshest terrorism laws, by invoking two articles of the Turkish Penal Code [TCK] in combination with the Anti-Terror Law.” At a press briefing on Monday, HRW's Emma Sinclair-Webb, who authored the report, said that sometimes a demonstrator can be charged with a heavier punishment than a real member of the armed terrorist group. “Once you remove freedom of assembly and expression, you make an armed fight more appealing. … That the definition of terrorism is too vague also promotes an armed fight,” she added.

The report she authored is based on a review of 50 cases heard at relevant courts in Diyarbakır and Adana, the two provinces with the highest caseload of these types of cases. The reports says that hundreds of people are serving heavy prison sentences in Turkey because they chanted slogans or carried posters for the PKK and its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, made a victory gesture, threw stones to police forces or burned tires during a protest.

Two of the 50 cases the report examines are of Selahattin Erden and Vesile Tadik. Erden was handed a prison term of over six years for holding a banner, but Hayrettin Teğin, another suspect who was also accused of holding the same banner was acquitted.

Tadik's case is no less notable. The suspect, illiterate and a mother of six, attended a demonstration last year to protest Öcalan's prison conditions and carried a banner that read “Approaching Öcalan is approaching peace.” She was convicted of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” and of “membership in an armed organization” as well as of having “committed a crime on behalf of the PKK.” She was punished with seven years and one month in prison.


(2010-11-03/todayszaman.com)