Prosecutor of Ceber Case Bases Prosecution on ECHR Law

From Bianet:

The High Criminal Court of Bakırköy has accepted the indictment about sixty officials held responsible for the arrest, torture and death of Engin Ceber.

Taylan Tanay, one of Ceber’s lawyers, said in the written announcement he made that the three of the guardians and a prison director will be prosecuted for the charge of killing a person by torture”, facing life imprisonment.

Fuat Karaosmanoğlu, prison director on duty at the time and guardians Sami Ergazi, Nihat Kızılkaya and Selahattin Apaydın, all of whom are accused of torture, are still arrested.

Moreover, the twenty-seven guardians are accused of not reporting the crime, the three guardians and the two prison directors are accused of misconduct in office and the three guardians are accused of tormenting.

In addition to this list, thirteen police officers will be prosecuted for “tormenting” once or more than once. Four gendarmerie officers are accused of malicious injury and the doctor who prepared a medical report without examination will be prosecuted for preparing a fake official document.

The European Human Rights Convention against the Turkish Penal Code
According to the indictment, the police officers who took Ceber and his friends into custody and those at the station they were taken to are among the accused as well.

The Prosecutor’s Office stated that nobody could be subjected to torture, referring to the European Human Rights Convention (EHRC). It also emphasized that the EHRC was at the same level with the Constitution and therefore came before the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

Basing its argument on the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, the prosecutor described beating and wetting with water as “bad treatment” and based the accusation of torture on the EHRC. The prosecutor also indicated that the claim in the legal background of the 94th article of the Penal Code that the purpose of the person making the torture was a factor of the crime was not valid according to the EHRC.

The hearing is in January
Tanay said that it was important the torture accusation was in the indictment and this happened because of the public pressure.

When the accused had been arrested the prosecutors had not included the torture among the reasons, but the lawyers had opposed to this.

On September 28, Ceber and his three friends had been taken into custody for protesting the fact that the police officer who had shot and left paralyzed Ferhat Gerçek had not been arrested. They had been arrested the next day and sent to the prison.

In the prison, Ceber had been tortured and eventually lost his life at the intensive care unit of the Şişli Etfal Hospital on October 10.

The Medical Examiner’s report had emphasized that Ceber had died because of the torture he had experienced. Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Şahin had recognized that Ceber had been tortured and apologized for it.

The first hearing will be on January 21, 2009.(EÜ/TB)

Ceber Death Raises Questions About Torture, Prisons

From TDZ:

The recent death of an inmate allegedly resulting from torture at the hands of police and prison guards has once again shown that Turkey still has problems with human rights, despite a zero-tolerance policy on inhumane treatment and torture.

Human rights groups in Turkey have said the government’s previous launch of a zero-tolerance policy on torture and abuse fell short of expectations. “The death of Engin Ceber has shown that Turkey still has a serious problem with human rights violations,” noted Ömer Faruk Gergenlioğlu, chairman of the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER).

Ceber, an inmate at İstanbul’s Metris Prison, died last week after allegedly being abused and tortured at the hands of police and prison guards. Ceber was reportedly taken into custody along with three friends in İstanbul for selling a leftist magazine. They were later convicted and sent to Metris Prison. The four inmates were allegedly subjected to disproportionate use of force and heavy torture by policemen and prison guards. Ceber was taken to the hospital last week and was pronounced dead there after suffering from a brain hemorrhage as a result of a head injury. Ceber’s lawyer, Taylan Tanay, said his client complained several times that he was frequently subjected to inhumane treatment in prison. Ceber was buried in İstanbul’s Kocatepe Cemetry.

“How can anyone explain why a person selling a legal magazine was taken into custody and convicted? This is not acceptable. We say there is zero tolerance on torture, but people still lose their lives because of it. Turkey has geared up over the last couple of years to protect human rights as part of efforts to become an EU member, but changes to this end, including the zero-tolerance policy on abuse, remain nothing but words,” Gergenlioğlu said.

Turkey’s attempts to harmonize with the European Union norms had produced a zero-tolerance policy on torture and abuse as part of sweeping changes made to the Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

Click here for coverage from the International Herald Tribune.

Police Violence in the Spotlight

PHOTO of police beating a group of women in Van this March.

Police violence has been one of the many human rights-related epidemics to plague Turkey over the years, and a recent report released Dec. 5 focuses attention on the problem. Turkish police -- civilian and military -- have long been accused of excessive use of force, torture, illegal detention, and various other human rights violations and improprieties, all of which are more frequently than not treated with impunity. From the HRW release:

The 80-page report, "Closing Ranks against Accountability - Barriers to Tackling Police Violence in Turkey," documents 28 cases of police abuse against members of the public since the start of 2007, and examines official investigations of police conduct in those instances. The cases include fatal and non-fatal shootings by the police; ill-treatment and excessive use of force by police against demonstrators; and ill-treatment during or following identity checks. Those who file complaints against the police often find themselves put on trial for having "forcibly resisted" the police.

"Turkey needs to tackle its violent and trigger-happy policing culture," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That can only happen if the criminal justice system holds the police to account for these serious crimes."

Police violence in Turkey has been exacerbated by changes to the law on police powers made in June 2007, which give police excessively broad discretion to use lethal force and encourage arbitrary stops and searches by police. Since the research for this report was finished in June 2008 there has been a spate of shootings by police officers in cities such as Ankara, Istanbul, Adana, Bursa, and Antalya. Seven of them were fatal.

The problem is compounded by the failure to adequately investigate abuses when complaints are made. The report documents a pattern of police interference with investigations, including attempts to conceal, contaminate, or plant evidence. Investigations by prosecutors last many months and even years, often with no result. Where a prosecution is commenced, trials also last for years and the rate of conviction is extremely low. Convictions rarely lead to prison sentences.

"Victims of police violence we interviewed frequently told us that the police feel untouchable," Roth said. "That will only change if police officers who break the law are punished."

PHOTO of Cüneyt Ertuş

I have tried to follow incidents of police violence since starting this blog, but reports are numerous and media coverage of specific cases is sparse in detail, sporadic, and regularly inconsistent. The impunity of police officers charged with rights violations is routinely decried by human rights groups inside and outside of Turkey. As HRW writes in its report, incidents of police violence have been on the rise despite government pledges to curb abuse. However, pledges are not always followed up with substantive action. Take torture: The AKP-led government has announced a zero-tolerance policy on torture, but police continue to torture despite official government policy. In fact, police torture is on the rise, and despite this fact, the political environment is such that just last month AKP deputy Abdulkadir Akgül said he supports the use of force on "enemies of the state," drawing little nuance as to just how such a determination is made, when, and under what circumstances (á la torture, maybe . . . ?). Although measures have been passed to prevent torture by police, the practice is still rife and frequently occurs before arrest -- when the suspect is in custody, but has yet to be charged. People are often frequently subject to "open air" torture by police, as was the case of 15-year old Cüneyt Ertuş whose arm was broken in front of European news cameras in this year's Newroz riots.

As mentioned by the HRW report, rights violations take place in a culture of impunity. Ahmet Kaymaz and his 12-year old son Uğur were killed by police in Mardin in 2004, and though the officers accused of using excessive force were exonerated, the case drags on. Claiming that there was not going to be fair trial since the beginning, the family's lawyer, Tahir Elçi says, “When we look at the violation of rights that have happened in Turkey in the past year, we see how right we have been. These incidents are the proof of how dominant the culture of no-punishment is. If the police officers who killed Kaymaz and his son had gone through a fair trial then perhaps the public officials would not act this comfortably and Engin Ceber [click here for Ceber's case, which involves prison abuse] would not be killed. The trials about torture and extrajudicial killings have reached no where. Kaymaz case is a good example.” According to Bianet, Elçi was prosecuted for “attempting to influence the process of fair trial” because of his words about the case, but was acquitted.

Although HRW's report does not document incidents occuring past June 2008, the most recent police shooting to attract national attention occurred in August. 22-year old Fatih Cem İnci was shot by a plainclothes police officer for little apparent reason. To make the killing all the more heinous, the officer used his gun to prevent passersby from rendering assistance. İnci died of massive blood loss. Luckily, in İnci's case, police officer Mustafa Atasoy was charged with voluntary manslaughter and stood trial shortly after.

A further illustration of police officers' sense of being "above the law" occurred earlier this month when a young woman was accosted by a Kadıköy police officer who apparently objected to the newspaper she was reading. The woman hired a lawyer who managed to convince a prosecutor to investigate the incident, a move for which the police retaliated by detaining the woman and verbally harassing her. As HRW documents, police routinely use such methods of intimidation. Another incident of police violence that received quite a bit of attention this year was the beating of grocer Metin Şahin by two municipal police officers in the Keçiören district of Ankara. Police are thought to have targeted Şahin because he sold alcohol and is Alevi. Unlike other cases of police violence, Şahin's case was widely reported and an investigation opened.

Police have also drawn sharp criticism for using excessive force to control demonstrators. May Day celebrations are always a tense time of protests in Turkey, but this May, İstanbul police showed little restraint. As testified to by two incidents this past month, the use of police force in response to political demonstrations is frequently questionable. In the first incident, Ankara police used tear gas on a group of allegedly riotous demonstrators. In the second, İstanbul police in Beyoğlu harassed a group of women who were holding an exhibition of photographs portraying violence against women. The exhibition was to raise awareness of domestic violence, and according to Bianet, police used "physical violence" to break up the allegedly "unauthorized activity."


In addition to local police forces, Turkey also has a national police force, in addition to a military police force. The Gendarmerie -- or Jandarma in Turkish -- are a branch of the Turkish Armed Forces, and in theory, are chiefly designated to patrol rural areas, including the largely rural and Kurdish southeast. The Gendarmerie has long been criticized for human rights violations, and democracy/rights activists have long called for the military force to be placed under civilian control. Largely a bow the EU demands for reform, the government plans to place the Gendarmerie under a proposed civilian-governed Domestic Security Undersecretariat, a new unit that will be solely responsible for coordinating security units in fighting terrorism. Under the plan, both the national police department and the Gendarmerie will be placed under the undersecretariat. The change is likely to be met with fierce opposition; however, as HRW's most recent report indicates, civilian control is far from a panacea.

Here are some suggestions from HRW:

The report contains detailed recommendations to the Turkish government, including:

-The establishment of an effective, independent police complaints authority to investigate police misconduct, leading to the prosecution of offenders;

-Requiring police to report when they use stop-and-search powers, and giving the person stopped a form that includes the officers' names, identification numbers, and the reason for the stop;

-Legal clarification that use of lethal force should be a means of last resort and used only where necessary to protect life;

-Tamper-proof video and audio recording in police stations at all times; and

-Action to ensure that trial hearings of law enforcement officials facing prosecution take place without undue delay.

Action should also be taken to clearly condemn all forms of torture by police, including that occurring before arrest and in open air areas.

For the full report from HRW, "Closing Ranks Against Accountability: Barriers to Tackling Police Violence in Turkey," click here. (The report is available in Turkish, too.) For an earlier report issued this year by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), click here. For coverage of the report on BBC World News, click here for video.

Arrests at Sakarya Prison: The Beginning of the End for Impunity

A long way to go, but if this is not just public relations, good progress indeed. From TDZ:

Five prison guards at a Sakarya prison were arrested on Thursday for abusing and torturing an inmate.

An investigation was launched recently by the Sakarya Public Prosecutor's Office into prison guards at the Sakarya Ferizli Prison, deemed one of Turkey's most modern prisons, who were accused of torturing an inmate, identified by the initials S.İ. The inmate was arrested and placed in prison last month on charges of sexually harassing three children.

S.İ. filed a criminal complaint against five prison guards earlier this month, saying he was subjected to various types of torture, including being burned with a hot iron. The prosecutor's office examined prison camera footage and verified that S.İ. was tortured and mistreated. Five prison guards were ordered arrested on Thursday by a court.

The arrests came only weeks after the death of an activist, allegedly at the hands of police and prison guards at an İstanbul prison. Engin Çeber, an inmate at İstanbul's Metris Prison, died last month after reportedly being abused and tortured, initially at the hands of police officers who interrogated him and later by prison security personnel when he was in jail. Çeber was pronounced dead after suffering from a brain hemorrhage as a result of head trauma. An autopsy suggested that severe bruises were detected on various parts of his body, strengthening claims that the activist was subjected to torture.

Results of the autopsy were verified by a forensic report released on Thursday, which cited the reason behind Çeber's death as torture. The nine-page report stated that Çeber died of a type of torture known as corporal punishment.

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin, who previously apologized for the death of Çeber on behalf of the Turkish state and the government, stated that his ministry is diligently investigating claims of mistreatment and torture.

"We consider human dignity above all. The Justice Ministry and the government are fighting against all wrongdoings, and we will continue to do so," he said.

According to the January-October 2008 report of the Human Rights Association (İHD), 238 people applied to the association for having been tortured during this period. 26 people died in the prisons or because of the rights violations in the prison during the same period.

Engin Çeber Case Commences

From today's The Guardian:

A landmark trial opened in Turkey yesterday of 60 police officers, soldiers and prison officials implicated in the death of a political activist from injuries allegedly sustained under torture.

The defendants, who include three prison governors and a doctor, are accused of inflicting intentional injury on Engin Ceber, who died from a brain haemorrhage in October after being arrested at a demonstration against police brutality.

Four of the defendants are charged with causing death through torture.

Human rights groups see the case as a litmus test of Turkey's willingness to combat torture and curb police abuses.

Observers say 29-year-old Ceber was kicked and beaten with metal and wooden bars in Istanbul's Metris prison after police accused him of resisting arrest. He had been detained after handing out leaflets protesting against lack of action against officers accused of shooting and paralysing another activist at a previous rally.

His lawyer says he was abused at a police station then denied treatment for days for injuries suffered in prison, a delay that could have contributed to his death.

Ceber's death drew a public apology from the Turkish justice minister, Mehmet Ali Sahin, who blamed it on "ill treatment" and ordered an investigation.

Only some of those indicted appeared in court for the start of the trial. While 19 prison officers have been suspended, campaigners have complained that many of the accused have stayed on duty.

The Çeber case thrust the issue of police violence and impunity from prosecution into the spotlight.

Ceber Case Ends in Prison Sentences

The Engin Ceber trial ended last Tuesday with convictions for four police officers found guilty of having tortured the leftist acticist to death in 2008. From Bianet:

A total of 60 public servants were tried in the case of Engin Çeber, who died from torture experienced in the Şehit Muhittin Bodur police station and in Metris Prison (Istanbul). Four defendants received aggravated life sentences which were mitigated to life sentences.

Prison guards Nihat Kızılkaya, Selahattin Apaydın and Sami Ergazi and Metris Prison vice director Fuat Karaosmanoğlu were charged with "causing death by torture".

Three police officers received a prison sentence of seven years and six months each; one police officer was handed down a sentence of two years and six months imprisonment.

The full article contains more background, which can also be found in my past posts. The conviction of at least four of those involved is a positive in terms of the fact that too often security and police officers are treated with impunity.

No Impunity . . . At Least Not in Ceber's Case

From TDZ:

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin apologized yesterday for the recent death of an activist allegedly at the hands of police and prison guards and announced that 19 members of the security staff believed to have been responsible for the tragedy have been suspended, a statement to which human rights groups in Turkey responded positively.

Şahin announced yesterday that 19 individuals who may have been responsible for Engin Ceber’s death have been suspended. “In the first stage, 19 employees involved in this have been suspended from duty,” he announced in televised remarks.

Ceber, an inmate at İstanbul’s Metris Prison, died last week after allegedly being abused and tortured, initially at the hands of police officers who interrogated him and later by prison security personnel when he was in jail. Ceber was reportedly taken into custody on Sept. 28 along with three friends in İstanbul for selling a leftist magazine. They were later convicted and sent to Metris Prison. The four inmates were allegedly subjected to mistreatment and torture by policemen and prison guards. Ceber was taken to the hospital last week and pronounced dead on arrival after suffering from a brain hemorrhage as a result of head trauma. A post mortem report has suggested that severe bruises were detected on different parts of his body, strengthening claims that the activist was subjected to torture.