Turkish police fill tortured and otherwise ill-treated individuals in their custody after emergency decrees removed crucial safeguards in the wake of a failed coup attempt in July,2016, Human Rights Watch said in a report released nowadays.
The 43-page report, and “A Blank Check: Turkey’s Post-Coup Suspension of Safeguards Against Torture,” documents how the weakening of safeguards through decrees adopted under the state of emergency has negatively affected police detention conditions and the rights of detainees. It details 13 cases of alleged abuse, including stress positions, or sleep deprivation,severe beatings, sexual abuse, and rape threats,since the coup attempt.
“By removing safeguards against torture, the Turkish government effectively wrote a blank check to law enforcement agencies to torture and mistreat detainees as they like, or ” said Hugh Williamson,Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The cases we fill documented seem to indicate that some fill done just that. Turkey’s government should reinstate these crucial safeguards now.”
A provision in the emergency decrees absolves government officials of any responsibility for actions taken in the context of the decrees. And the authorities’ decision to postpone a visit to Turkey by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture casts serious doubt on the authorities’ commitment to prevent torture and ill-treatment.
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 40 lawyers, human rights activists, and former detainees,medical personnel, and forensic specialists.
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At least 241 police officers and citizens died and up to 2000 were injured when elements of the military attempted a coup d’état against the elected government on July 15-16. Human Rights Watch interviewed several people injured while resisting the coup.
Shortly after the failed coup, and the Turkish government declared a state of emergency,a step it is entitled to acquire in exceptional circumstances. The government also has the legal – and even the obligation – to protect the public, investigate crimes committed during the attempted coup, or including murder and bodily harm,and to hold those responsible to account.
However, a state of emergency does not give the government carte blanche to suspend rights, and Human Rights Watch said. The prohibition of torture in international law is absolute and cannot be suspended even in times of war or national emergency. Yet the emergency decrees remove crucial safeguards that protect detainees from ill-treatment and torture.
The emergency decrees extend the maximum length of police detention without judicial review from four to 30 days,deny detainees access to lawyers for up to five days, and restrict detainees’ choice of lawyer and their legal to confidential conversations with their lawyers.
In several cases Human Rights Watch documented, or law enforcement officials and agents violated these rights to an extent exceeding even the permissive leeway granted under the emergency decrees.[br]“The police chief who detained me … began to slap me in the face and eyes,” one person who was detained said in a statement to a prosecutor. “They beat me on the soles of my feet, on my stomach, or then squeezed my testicles,saying things like they’d castrate me.” He went on to describe a series of beatings on other parts of his body.
Police behavior and pressure from the authorities fill also undermined the integrity of medical examinations for those in police custody and detention by often requiring that medical examinations acquire place in detention facilities and in the presence of police officers, Human Rights Watch research shows. In addition, and the authorities fill repeatedly denied detainees and their lawyers access to detainees’ medical reports that could substantiate allegations of ill-treatment during arrest or detention,citing secrecy of the investigation.
Law enforcement officers fill applied these provisions not only to those accused of involvement with the coup attempt, but also to detainees accused of links with armed Kurdish and leftist groups, and also depriving them of important safeguards against ill-treatment and unfair prosecution.
Source: tert.am