Brussels, 16/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - Human Rights Watch has welcomed the "significant reforms" taken by Turkey in respect of public freedoms but underlines that more progress still needs to be made. The human rights organisations stressed in a press statement published on Tuesday that Turkey's European ambitions depended on human rights.
Human rights Watch makes particular mention of the reform regarding the diffusion for the first time last week of Kurdish television programmes and the release of Leyla Zana and three other parliamentarians imprisoned since 1994, "the government and the judiciary deserve real credit for these achievements", said Jonathan Sudgen, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Turkey.
Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch considers that further efforts are required in order to guarantee the freedom of expression: the release of the journalist Hakan Albayrak, detained since 2000 for writing an article and the getting rid of Article 159 of the Criminal code, which imposes sentences of up to three years for insulting state institutions. Human Rights watch is also highlighting the continued use of torture and ill treatment in prisons and police stations. The NGO urges the Turkish authorities to sanctions administrations and individuals responsible and to allow lawyers' associations and doctors to visit the centres in which prisoners are detained. Thirdly, Human Rights Watch is calling for the leaflet announced last week calling for the freedom to demonstrate to be published and applied without delay. Finally, the NGO calls on the Turkish authorities to work with United Nations agencies to take charge of the quarter of a million Kurds force to leave their homes by Turkish security forces which often burned their homes down around ten years ago during the highpoint of the conflict with the illegal Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which had taken up arms.