Curfews and operations carried out in the framework of the fight against terrorism in south-eastern Turkey have led to many human rights violations, argues Nils Muiznieks, Commissioner for Human Rights, in a contribution to the examination of a joint application brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by 34 Turkish nationals in August 2015.
This document, which was published on Friday 5 May, corresponds to a procedure under the European Human Rights Convention (article 6 paragraph 3), allowing the Human Rights Commissioner to intervene before the Court as a third party.
Muiznieks bases his contribution on two visits, one in April 2016 to Ankara, Istanbul and Diyarbakir, the other to Ankara in September 2016. It also refers to his memorandum on the impact of anti-terror operations on human rights in south-eastern Turkey, published at the end of 2016, and his meetings with the authorities and representatives of NGOs, journalists and lawyers.
The conclusions are clear. Muiznieks stresses the lack of legal basis for bringing in curfews that have affected 1.6 million people, according to a report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. These curfews, brought in for 24 hours a day and without notice, together with sanctions up to and including imprisonment, have effectively placed the population under house arrest and made it extremely difficult to access basic products, medicines and medical treatment, the Commissioner states.
The disproportion between the number of terrorists neutralised by the measures taken and the number of civilians affected by them (a ratio of 1 to 440.8) is also flagged up by Muiznieks, who questions an excessive use of force, including the use of heavy weaponry in residential areas. The deaths of 70 to 90 civilians sheltering in the cellar of a building in the city of Cizre mowed down by Turkish tanks in February 2016 is referred to frequently in the document, as these events are the basis for several requests tabled to the ECHR.
Generally, the Commissioner again denounces the widespread impunity in Turkey. The ban on human rights defenders and the media from accessing the areas in question makes it even harder to collect evidence, as the Turkish legal system is reluctant to clash with the security forces and the increasing interference of the executive, Muiznieks stresses, reiterating the laws adopted to this effect since March 2015, reinforced by decree-laws promulgated in the framework of the state of emergency decreed last July.
Evidence of human rights violations has already been destroyed, Muiznieks states, referring to the practice of sending bodies stripped of their clothing directly to forensic laboratories in order to make it harder to identify them. These bodies have been buried in secret locations, he stresses. This situation is not only concealment of evidence, but also denies the families the right, laid down in the case-law of the ECHR, to pay their last respects to their loved ones in line with their religion. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)