Reforming the Judiciary . . . And What About the Students?

The government is planning a judicial reform package to address criticisms it is facing at home and abroad as to lengthy detention times (the time prisoners are held before they are even formally arrested, let alone indicted and then tried) and the investigation and imprisonment of journalists accused of either being terrorists and/or propagating terrorism through their writing. The bill is indubitably in part a response to the large number of ruling against Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights.

Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin announced the package at a press conference on Jan. 18, and typical of such massive overhauls, the government contains numerous provisions, all more or less related to the actual goal of addressing the problem, and which make the law, much more its actual impact, incredibly difficult to assess (for an attempt, see Sedat Ergin in Hurriyet). A bit on the new law from Hurriyet Daily News:

“Once enacted, the amendments would reduce the number of people who await trial in jail,” he said, adding that judges would be required to provide concrete justification for arrest orders and would be able to use alternative measures, such as judicial control, for a wider range of offenses.

Turkey’s long pre-trial detentions have been the subject of much criticism recently, as nearly half of those behind bars are not yet convicted of any crime.

The prospective reforms would also aim to widen media freedoms, Ergin said. A provision that allows for the suspension of publications on grounds of “terror propaganda” will be abolished, and confiscation orders for publications will be removed after a transition period, he said.

An amendment to reduce the jail term for those who “assist terrorist organizations” is also included in the package.

The reforms would suspend all probes into offences committed via the media that are punishable with jail terms of up to five years, Ergin said. If the same offense is not re-committed within three years, the cases would be scrapped for good.

The package aims to relieve the courts of the huge burden related to relatively minor crimes such as driving offenses, check fraud and clandestine electricity use. Such breaches would be penalized with fines and the courts would be relieved of about two million cases, the minister said.

It seems there are at least two positive steps forward in the legislation: first, that the practice of detaining suspects before they are indicted, let alone tried, might become somewhat more difficult; and, second, that those accused of committing a crime carrying a maximum sentence of five or less years will perhaps not be imprisoned while they await a verdict.

As to the first, prosecutors will have to provide concrete evidence to courts before detaining suspects. Yet how this will work in practice is yet to be determined since the standard of "concrete" is obviously open to interpretation, especially by specially-authorized courts with unique powers that continue to operate without much regard for any consistent application of a standardized rule of law.

As to the second, many of those currently detained are facing sentences for crimes that carry maximum sentences much greater than five years, and grouping together charges to make for hefty potential sentences is a common judicial practice. If there is a will to detain someone, there is still very much a means. The most controversial detentions, those that have taken place in the context of the Ergenekon/Sledgehammer investigations and the KCK operations, have most routinely charged suspects with being members of terrorist organizations, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of ten years. These suspects would not be eligible for the alternative pre-trial arrangements vaguely described in the law.

Further, it is not clear whether those facing five years or less in prison will most definitely be released before they are tried. That said, the maximum sentence for spreading propaganda/assisting a terrorist organization has been reduced to five years, which, depending on implementation, might free some journalists and lawyers who are charged with the lesser offense.

And What About the Students?

PHOTO from Radikal

As many critics point out, the judicial reform bill does not address the increasingly conspicuous problem of jailing student protestors. Turkey has a long history of lively student dissent, and the recent rise in the number of students imprisoned for political protest has garnered much attention in the opposition press.

Last month, Cumhuriyet  reported that approximately 500 students have been jailed for the political activities, mostly young leftists staunchly opposed to the AKP-led government. The students are frequently jailed under the Anti-Terrorism Law, and according to Cumhuriyet and other reports in the press, are often placed in solitary confinement in F-type prisons.

One of the most controversial cases involving student protestors in Malatya who were charged with membership in a terrorist organization for distributing tickets for a Grup Yorum concert and participating in celebrations marking International Women's Day. There are numerous other cases like this one, and the details vary from paper to paper. That said, the sheer number of detentions, arrests, and the lengthy sentences, in addition to prison conditions, are becoming a major human rights issue. There has also been attention paid to what happens to the students even if they are eventually acquitted and released, in addition to penalties imposed not by prosecutors and courts, but by administrators and universities. For this latter dimension, see this article from Radikal.

Many columns addressing Ergin's judicial reform touched specifically on the topic of students, which goes to so just how important the issue is becoming for those who do not feel their rights are secure under the current government. Whether the AKP will address the issue is yet to be seen, but opposition forces are certainly not letting the issue go by the wayside. For more reports of students either in prison or waiting trial for crimes related to political protest, see accounts in English from human rights monitor Bianet.

Another May Day in Taksim Square

PHOTO from Hurriyet Daily News

Today marks International Worker's Day, or May Day, a big day in Turkish politics since 1977 when 34 demonstrators were shot dead in Istanbul's famed Taksim Square. Last year marked the first time in years that the Istanbul municipality allowed May Day celebrations. Before then, the days before May Day were marked with curiosity as to just how bad the clash would be between the police and protestors. Following massive criticisms against the government following
a large crackdown celebrations/demonstrations in 2008, President Gul declared May Day a national holiday the following year.

Always a big day for the left, it seems this year there were some additional players around. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and socialist parties such as the Freedom and Solidarity Party, or ÖDP, were unsurprising sights at the May Day celebrations, as they have been participating in the May Day festivities for a long time.

This year, however, they were joined by members of the People’s Voice Party, or HSP, founded by Islamic-rooted politician Numan Kurtulmuş. Members of the group carried posters saying, “We want a deputy with a headscarf” and “Say no to subcontracted labor.” Party members attending the celebration included women wearing headscarves and young people wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the image of revolutionary Che Guevara.

Barbaros Risal, a young member of the party, said he has socialist views but feels close to the HSP. “Being left-wing means being on the side of the oppressed ones. In this context our rhetoric is no different from the Communist Party’s rhetoric,” said Risal.

Journalists demanding press freedom were also among the groups celebrating May Day in Taksim Square. “As journalists we are subjected to a lot of oppression in Turkey. Now we are here to voice our demand for press freedom and for the release of our colleagues who are in prison just because of their journalistic activities,” said Elif Ilgaz, a journalist who is a member of the group “Friends of Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener,” named after two recently arrested reporters.

This year's May Day also premiered a replica of the banner that hung in the square in 1977.

"Protesting as a Terrorist Offense"

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a stirring report documenting Turkey's restrictions on the rights to protest and freedom of association. Under Turkey's stiff Anti-Terrorism Law, it is illegal to attend demonstrations said to be sponsored or held in support of a terrorist organization. However, in recent years, Turkish courts have been applying a provision in the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to be a member of a terrorist organization to convict protestors. The mere act of protesting -- or, to be more specific, to be seen as protesting in response by the PKK to do so -- can land one in prison. As HRW documents, both the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Turkish Penal Code are broadly and arbitrarily applied, and frequently result in Kurdish citizens serving long prison sentences for doing little more than attending a protest. From the report's summary:

Turkey’s Kurdish citizens have frequently protested publicly to express frustrations with the government’s policies towards their culture, status, and rights, and, in recent years, the imprisonment of Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK leader. For instance, on July 14, 2008, and from October 18 to 21, 2008, protests were held in various cities in Turkey against Öcalan’s prison conditions and alleged ill-treatment. Protests are also held every year on February 15, the day in 1999 that Turkish authorities captured Öcalan in Kenya and brought him to Turkey. The festival of Newroz/Nevruz (Kurdish and Turkish spellings in common usage in Turkey), the Kurdish New Year, on March 21, often elicits demonstrations as well as cultural celebrations. Protests took place prior to Turkey’s March 29, 2009 municipal elections. There are also fairly frequent localized protests in cities throughout southeast Turkey and in mainly Kurdish-populated districts of cities such as Adana. These typically involve groups of youths and children, who shout pro-Öcalan and PKK slogans, burn tires in the street, and respond to police orders to disperse by throwing stones.

In the past, courts in Turkey convicted these protestors under laws governing public order or of “making propaganda for a terrorist organization” (Article 7/2, Anti-Terror Law). Yet in recent years, criminal justice officials have deemed Kurdish protestors demonstrating against Turkey’s policies towards the Kurds to be “committing crimes on behalf of the PKK without being a member of that organization” (Article 220/6, Turkish Penal Code). As a result, they are prosecuted as if they were actually fighting the government as armed “members” of the PKK (Article 314/2, Turkish Penal Code). These serious charges, on top of more usual charges under the Law on Demonstrations and Public Assemblies, could result in sentences of 28 years in prison, or more, if there are repeated offenses. To date, the majority of adults convicted under these laws have received prison terms of between seven and 15 years. Prior to a July 2010 legal amendment, child protestors typically received prison sentences of between four and five years, though in 2010, at least several children were sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

Law enforcement authorities and the courts allege that the PKK and its representatives are organizing the demonstrations as part of a wider policy to promote civil unrest, and even uprising, among Kurds in towns and cities throughout Turkey. By way of evidence the government and courts point to the PKK’s decrees issued at various congresses, and the fact that senior PKK representatives use sympathetic media outlets to issue “appeals” to the Kurdish population to take to the streets in protest. Hence, the template for individual indictments includes an abstract overview of PKK history and policies, followed by a statement of the alleged specific criminal activities of the defendant. In none of the cases examined by Human Rights Watch had prosecutors submitted evidence to establish that the individual defendant either heard the PKK’s “appeal” or had been directly instructed or motivated by the PKK to participate in the demonstration, much less that the individual had any other specific link with the PKK or committed a crime under its orders.

The Turkish courts consider it no obstacle to conviction that the prosecution has failed to provide evidence of the defendant’s specific intent to support or aid the illegal activities of the PKK. The General Penal Board of the Court of Cassation has held that it is sufficient to show that sympathetic media outlets broadcast the PKK’s “appeals”—speeches by the PKK leadership calling on the Kurdish population to protest or raise their voices on various issues. Then the defendant, by joining the demonstration, is assumed to have acted directly under PKK orders. Yet even at extremely local demonstrations not announced in the media beforehand, protestors are routinely charged with acting under the orders of the PKK. In some cases, courts have held that the PKK’s “appeal” to participate in demonstrations is a continuous generic one, and therefore a specific instance of appeal to the population need not be proved.

This legal framework makes no distinction between an armed PKK combatant and a civilian demonstrator. In fact, demonstrators may be punished more harshly, because while combatants who turn themselves in may receive partial amnesty under the “Effective Repentance” provision in the Turkish Penal Code, there is no such provision to reduce the sentences of peaceful demonstrators who have never taken up arms. As a result, peaceful demonstrators with no clear PKK affiliation may be punished more harshly than PKK members who have actually served as guerrilla fighters.

Useful is the report's elaboration of how Turkish courts apply the Anti-Terrorism Law in conjunction with Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code in order to secure protestors prison sentences that are certainly in disproportion to the offense, especially when it can be argued that the offenders are peaceably demonstrating. In one case, an illiterate mother of six was sentenced to seven years in prison for holding a sign with a message that read "the road to peace lies through Ocalan."

May Day

PHOTO by Emrah Gurel / Hurriyet Daily News

May Day celebrations took place in relative peace yesterday, the only disturbance coming when unhappy workers through stones and other objects at Turk-Is leader Mustafa Kumlu. From Hurriyet Daily News: More than 200,000 people gathered in Istanbul's Taksim Square for Saturday's May Day celebrations, which by midday were marred only by a protest of a union chief.

Police deployed more than 22,000 officers for the rally, the first in Taksim Square since 1978.

A group of workers protested the head of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions, or Türk İş, as he took the stage to make a speech on Saturday afternoon.

Mustafa Kumlu was forced to leave the stage and seek shelter in the Atatürk Culture Center, or AKM, after workers from various organizations — Tekel, the former state alcohol and tobacco monopoly; İSKİ, the water and sewage directorate; and a fire brigade — began a protest. Some of the protesters threw stones, breaking some of the culture center's windows, Anatolia news agency reported.

After the protest, the stage remained empty and the crowd began to disperse. The speeches restarted later.

Kumlu aside, most unions pointed to the lack of unrest and largely peaceful demonstrations as evidence that May Day celebrations in Taksim Square should not have been restricted in past years. Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler allowed the celebrations to take place this year for the first time since 1978. In 1977, at least 34 people died in the square when rightist gunmen fired indiscriminately into the May Day crowd. Past May Day celebrations have been marred with violence. Following massive criticisms against the government following
a large crackdown celebrations/demonstrations in 2008, President Gul declared May Day a national holiday the following year.