Ahmet Şık and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu Cleared in One Case

Though Ahmet Şık remains under arrest for alleged, but highly questionable, links to the shadowy Ergenekon gang (see here), an Istanbul court recently acquitted him in a case involving other charges related to a book the journalist wrote with Ertugrul Mavioglu concerning the Ergenekon investigation. From Hurriyet Daily News:

The decision came after the second hearing of the case involving accusations of violation of investigation secrecy based on a two-volume book called “40 Katır 40 Satır: Kontrgerilla ve Ergenekon’u Anlama Rehberi” (Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Guide to Understanding Counter-guerilla and Ergenekon) and “40 Katır 40 Satır: Ergenekon’da Kim Kimdir?” (Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Who is Who in Ergenekon).

The defense first presented their plea to the court said the accusations involving another Ergenekon suspect Hasan Ataman Yıldırım claims. The lawyers said the subject of the case is irrelevant as an another case has already been filed against the journalists. The two-volume book was published in 2010 and the case was filed immediately afterward with the justification of “violation of secrecy” in the Ergenekon investigation.

Both Şık and Mavioğlu expressed in their defense, “cases are filed against every news story, book regarding Ergenekon,” Şık said their book was not sourced by leaks from police or prosecutor as some journalists said, but careful inspection of open sources. “Our sources do not include CIA, the prime minister or the chief of general staff either,” Mavioğlu added.

Regarding Şık’s lack of presence at the first hearing, the lawyers argued that there is no sufficient explanation given by the officials of the prison during their testimony. The prison where he is being held said in their written statement they did not have enough vehicles for transportation to the Kadıköy courthouse on April 14.

Şık has been under arrest in the scope of the ongoing Ergenekon case since March 6 and was taken to the court between high security measurements taken by the police and gendarmerie as the protests was being held out of the courthouse. The crowd including the press members and Republican People Party, or CHP, party members chanted, “Ahmet will get out of the prison and write again,” and, “There can be no bomb made by a poem or book, prime minister”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan previously compared Şık’s book draft called “İmamın Ordusu” (The Imam’s Army) to a bomb. The slogan referred to both Erdoğan’s remarks, while reminding the prime minister of the time he served in prison for reading a poem before he was elected to his office.

Journalist Ruşen Çakır, who read a press statement in front of the courthouse, said 68 journalists are behind bars in a country.

For additional reportage from Bianet, click here. The counter to Prime Minister Erdogan's remarks refers to the case brought against the prime minister after he read a famous Islamic poem about mosques becoming minarets. Erdogan's reading of the poem resulted in a temporary ban from politics, after which the AKP rose as Turkey's only significant liberal party. Now the AKP's commitment to liberalism is under serious question.

This is a victory for Şık, who, in this case, was charged with revealing state secrets for publishing a piece in which all the information was public. However, the larger case brought against him in March looms ahead and the journalist remains under arrest.

DIHA Journalist Ersin Celik Sent to Prison

From Bianet:

Imprisonment of ten months was the verdict for journalist Ersin Çelik on the grounds of a news item about the death of Dicle University student Aydın Erdem. In his article, Çelik had put forward that Erdem died from police bullets when he attended a demonstration in 2009.

The student had actually joined a protest march for people who lost their lives because they were shot by the police and was then gunned down himself. Çelik, reporter for the Dicle News Agency (DİHA) at the time, was tried because he named the alleged perpetrators in his article.

It was reported on Friday (13 May) that the Diyarbakır 6th High Criminal Court handed down a ten-month prison sentence to the journalists on charges of "disclosing the identity of a public official on anti-terror duties".

Çelik was not able to attend the hearing because he is currently being detained in the scope of another trial. He was represented by his lawyer Servet Özen.

Erdem was killed in the mass protests that consumed the southeast in December 2009. In September, charges were brought against Erdem's father for inscribing a martyr's prayer on his son's headstone. The Diyarbakir Chief Prosecutor's Office accused Erdem's father with "praising a crime and a criminal" under Article 215 of the Turkish Penal Code. I am not sure if the charges were dropped. Remember, in Turkey, charges are easily brought by zealous prosecutors looking to make and/or score political points. In Celik's case, those charges have resulted in a prison sentence.

Detentions and Arrests Spike in the Southeast

Newroz demonstrations in Diyarbakir / PHOTO from Efe

The number of detentions and arrests in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast has drastically increased in the past month. The spike follows the BDP's "democratic solutions" campaign launched in March, as well as the mass unrest two weeks ago following the Election Board's attempt to bar some candidates from the pro-Kurdish BDP party from running in parliamentary elections. The number of people detained and arrested in conjunction with the government's ongoign operations against the KCK is also part of the equation. From Bianet:

A total of 2506 people were taken into police custody in Turkey between 24 March and 11 May 2011. Operations that resulted in the arrest of more than 400 people were carried out between the Newroz celebrations (end of March) and 1 May demonstrations.

According to the Dicle News Agency (DİHA), an estimated 2506 people were taken into police custody for political reasons in the course of police operations that started after the Newroz festivals and peaked with the veto decision of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on 18 April. Hundreds of people were arrested. Only within the past five days, 155 people were taken into custody and 53 people were arrested.

According to data compiled by DİHA from the news the agency obtained, more than 2000 people were taken into custody between 24 March and 29 April, a period of six weeks. On 29 April, the last day of this wave of operations, at least 66 people were taken into custody in seven different cities.

According to figures announced by the Human Rights Association (İHD), 831 people, 189 of whom were children, were taken into police custody after the veto decision of the YSK between 19 and 29 April. The YSK had decided to bar twelve independent candidates from the general elections, a decision that was partly reversed later on. During the same period of time, two people were killed by the police and 308 people were injured during demonstrations.

* At least 177 people were taken into police custody in the scope of operations carried out between 29 April and 5 May.

* On Friday 6 May, 163 people were taken into police custody in Kurdish provinces and Hatay/Dörtyol, Bodrum and Adana, 19 of whom were arrested. On 7 May, another 24 arrests and an additional eleven people were registered.

* This rate increased further between 7 and 11 May. Throughout five days, 155 people were taken into custody and 53 were arrested. On 9 May, seven university students were arrested, among them one DİHA reporter. On 10 May, 34 people were taken into police custody, three of them are alleged members of the 'Group Comment' organization.

* Police operations were conducted in Hakkari, Mardin, Şırnak, Diyarbakır, Siirt, Van, Urfa, Söke, Erzurum and Malatya between 7 and 11 May.

Detentions and arrests are different in Turkey. Polce have the right to detain suspects for up to 24 hours, and a judge may extend this time to 48 hours, excluding the time it takes to transport detainees from different facilities. During this time, a detainee is entitled to the right to an attorney.

However, under the Anti-Terrorism Law, in cases where a suspect is thought to be linked to a terrorist organization no such right is afforded. In the southeast, this is the case in the vast majority of detentions. In most of these cases, detainees are not allowed to see an attorney until after the detention period is over, allowing police to freely interrogate people without an attorney "getting in the way." According to human rights groups, it is during this time that torture and other forms of ill-treatment is most likely to occur.

According to Serkan Akbas, a lawyer with the Diyarbakir Bar Association,  most detentions and arrests are based on photographs of people attending this or that event or meeting with people thought to be associated with the KCK or PKK. This has long been the case, though I assume the situation has gotten only worse. A mere photograph and a vendetta can land a person in serious trouble.

Detentions also routinely follow demonstrations and clashes with police, such as have been occurring in relation to the "peace tents" the BDP has setup in relation to the "democratic solutions" campaign.

Those arrested during protests can face more jail time than actual militants who decide to surrender. Under a limited amnesty law, militants receive a maximum of six year and three months in prison. Meanwhile, protestors can face between seven and 15 years in prison. For more on this, see Human Right Watch's November report on protesting as a criminal offense.

Further, arrests, even if based on the shoddiest of evidence, can land one in prison for months. According to the Minister of Justice, the average length of time between arrest and a trial verdict was 580 days. The problem of prolonged periods of arrest is indubitably a violation of the right to an expedient trial guaranteed under the European Convention of Human Rights. In the wake of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations, yhe practice has been criticized by the Turkish Bar Associations' Union. Bilgi Univeristy law professor Idil Elveris writes about the issue here.

A Bloody Weekend, A Riotous Week

PHOTO from Radikal

Predominantly Kurdish cities throughout the southeast are in an uproar this week after clashes with PKK fighters attempting cross the border from northern Iraq resulted in the death of 12 militants. PKK news sources claim five Turkish soldiers were killed in retaliation. Major fighting has been taking place on the border since the Turkish military launched a large-scale operations on Thursday.

According to news reports, three of the bodies were not collected by the Turkish Armed Forces and returned to their families, as is usually the practice. In an effort to retrieve the bodies, a group of approximately people marched from Sirnak province over the Iraqi border, where they got into a confrontation with the Turkish military. The conflict was defused by local officials, after which the military retrieved the bodies to in the end return them to relatives.

Just one month before elections, Kurdish AKP deputy Galip Ensarioglu accused the powers-that-be of using the clashes as a means to stoke ultra-nationalist sentiment and keep the MHP above the 10% threshold. The AKP is attempting to win voters from MHP's usual constituency in an effort to have the part fall below the threshold, the occurrence of which would help secure an AKP super-majority.


UPDATE I (5/17) -- Bianet reports that 47 people were detained on Sunday night in Hakkari (like Sirnak, also on the border with Iraq) after protests there. There were also wide-scale protests in Diyarbakir and Istanbul. In Istanbul, 1,000 people assembled outside Galatasary Lisesi on Istiklal. Bianet also reports that Turkish military officers today fired upon a high school in Cizre, a town in Sirnak, after students began to protest and shout pro-PKK slogans.

Radikal reports that Sirnak governor Vahdettin Ozkan requested Gen. Mustafa Bakici to collect the bodies, but that the general refused on the grounds that the people should "experience the power of the state." There are also allegations that the Turkish military insensitively called BDP offices and told them to come pick up the bodies of the militants. None of this has been confirmed. BDP deputy Gulten Kisanak conveys her narrative of what happened here. It all seems like an incredibly confusing incident with plenty of politics on both sides.

Prime Minister Erdogan is set to hold an election rally in Siirt on Thursday.

"Don't Touch My Internet!"

Tens of thousands of protestors took to the street yesterday to protest the government's plans to further regulate the Internet. (For more on the new regulations, click here). From Bianet, which has challenged the new regulations in a case to be heard by the Council of State:

Hundreds of thousands of Turkish internet users took the streets in 31 Turkish provinces on Sunday (15 May) to demonstrate against the "Draft Bill on Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use" that was approved by the Council of Information Technologies and Telecommunication (BTK) in the end of February.

The participants of the protest action got organized via Facebook and Twitter. They walked along Istiklal Avenue all the way from Taksim Square to the Tünel district. Many groups joined the demonstration, among them also political parties, the Linux Users Association, the LGBTT initiative LambdaIstanbul, the 'Hands off the Internet' Initiative and websites like Kaldıraç, İnci Dictionary, Ekşi Dictionary, bobiler.org, Uykusuz, and the Ulusağ dictionary.

Labor unions also joined the protests.

CHP Supports Devolution in the Southeast Ahead of Elections

The CHP has announced four main planks to solving the Kurdish problem: devolution, Kurdish language education, lowering of the current 10% threshold parties must attain to enter parliament, and the establishment of truth commission-like institution to investigate crimes committed during the 1990s. The devolution proposal is the most racial of these given Turkey's long history of unitary government. The CHP is arguing that Turkey should fully implement the European Administrations Local Autonomy Condition to which Turkey has currently attached reservations. From Hurriyet Daily News:

CHP deputy leader Sezgin Tanrıkulu said the Kurdish problem could be solved within the unitary structure of Turkey by empowering local administrations with the full implementation of the European Local Administrations Autonomy Condition.

Tanrıkulu revealed the democratization targets of CHP in a meeting to a group of journalists in Istanbul. CHP has proposals for four main democratization issues in Turkey in its election statement, Tanrıkulu said.

“Turkey is one of the countries that has signed the European Local Administrations Autonomy Condition, however Turkey has attached annotation for seven of its articles. We want these annotations removed. If these annotations are removed, then there would be no question of democratic autonomy for the Kurdish people, the whole issue can be solved within the unitary structure of Turkey,” said Tanrıkulu.

The CHP is also in favor of having everybody to learn their mother tongue in the school, said Tanrıkulu. “Not only should our Kurdish citizens, but everybody in Turkey should have the chance to learn their mother tongue at the school, if they want to. The most important thing is accepting this as a fundamental right,” said Tanrıkulu.

“We will overcome the obstacles that lie before our Kurdish citizens to live their identity freely by establishing a pluralist and libertarian democracy,” said Tanrıkulu.

Reducing the election threshold is another proposal of CHP in its “democratization targets.”

“CHP has already proposed that the Parliament reduce the threshold from 10 percent to 7 percent last year, however as our leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, it could be even reduced to 5 percent or less. Reducing or lifting the threshold in whole, is essential for the reflection of people’s will to the Parliament,” Tanrıkulu said.

Regarding the discussions on implementation of the presidential system in Turkey, Tanrıkulu said, “These discussions cannot go any further than being a fantasy.”

The fourth main proposal of the CHP in its democratization package is “creating a research commission for inquiry of unsolved murders.” “There should a research commission in international standards in order to enlighten the unsolved murders in Turkey,” said Tanrıkulu.

Tanrıkulu said the CHP wants a new libertarian constitution that would secure every aspect of the human rights issues, including the civil, political, social, economical, cultural rights for everyone. “However in order to reach these targets that the CHP drew for democratization, we don’t need a new constitution, we can make these changes even without a new constitution,” said Tanrıkulu.

There is still no reference here to removing the ethnic chauvinism in Turkey's current understanding of Turkish citizenship, which addresses all Turkish citizens as belonging to the "Turkish nation." Amending the constitution in this regard has long been a key demand for Kurds.

However, there is no doubt the CHP is giving the AKP a run for its money in meeting long-held demands of Kurds. Local autonomy for Kurdish municipalities has become a big issue since last summer, and the CHP's willingness to address the issue is big news.

Turkish Newspaper to Have Pages in Kurdish

The Turkish daily Radikal will begin publishing some of the pages its weekly magazine supplement in Kurdish. Content includes a feature on Kurdish broadcasting and excerpts from a new novel by a Kurdish author. The first edition will premiere in time for the Diyarbakir Book Fair, which I had the pleasure of attending last year.

Progress on the Domestic Violence Front

Turkey has signed a new Council of Europe convention to prevent and combat violence against women. As documented by a report released by Human Rights Watch earlier this month, Turkey has been plagued by domestic violence over the years thanks in part to problems implementing existing law. Turkey pushed very hard for the Convention to be opened for signatures at the Council's recent ministerial meeting. From Hurriyet Daily News:

Reaching a consensus proved difficult as many countries expressed resistance to the far-reaching provisions of the convention, but Turkey adopted a negotiation position based on international standards, Acar told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview.

“We did not hide behind any cultural, economic or political pretexts and we resisted those who wanted to water down the stipulations,” she added.

The convention is revolutionary in the sense that it accepts violence against women as a human-rights violation, according to Acar. “This is very important, because violence against women will no longer be seen as a social problem. This will strengthen women’s demands for access to judicial recourse as well as protection,” she said.

Also important is the fact that the convention has endorsed a wide-ranging definition of “violence,” Acar added.

“Violence is not only physical. It can be economic or psychological; stalking is, for instance, a type of violence,” she said. The convention also includes violence against immigrant women, a measure that was resisted by some countries.

The convention covers what are called “the 4 Ps”: prevention, protection, prosecution and policy.

“The fourth P is especially important for Turkey, since we lack an integrated policy on gender equality. This convention will be known as the Istanbul convention and that way Turkey will be known as a country championing the cause of combating violence against women,” Acar told the Daily News.

“Just as we endorsed a zero-tolerance policy on preventing torture, we need to endorse zero tolerance on violence against women. In this sense, this convention will be a new driving force for Turkish domestic efforts,” she said. “Because we really need a mentality change, especially as far as implementation is concerned. All the judges, prosecutors, police and health officials will have to be trained. And for that Turkey needs to ratify the convention as soon as possible to set a good example as well.”

And more from Bianet:

Some 20 to 25 percent of women across the European region suffer physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives, according to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the Convention.

The convention is the first legally binding instrument in the region that creates a comprehensive legal framework to combat violence against women through prevention, protection, prosecution, and victim support. It defines and criminalizes multiple forms of violence against women: physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as forced marriage and female genital mutilation. The treaty also establishes an international group of independent experts to monitor its implementation at the national level.

The Convention addresses gaps in domestic violence legislation and implementation, such as weak laws, bad implementation of protection laws, lack of coordination, lack of access to justice, low funding for domestic violence responses, lack of shelters, and lack of prevention measures.

To implement the convention, countries will establish hotlines, shelters, medical and forensic services, counseling, as well as legal aid.

Progress at the top to be sure, but real change, of course, will be shown from below and Turkey's willingness and effectiveness to ensure that police officers and other state agents responsible for protecting women follow legal guidelines.

Torn Between Worlds

Hranuysh Hagopyan, Armenia’s diaspora minister, walks with acting Patriarch Aram Atesyan after an award ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday.  PHOTO by Hasan Altinisik / Hurriyet Daily News

A group of Turkish Armenians were recently honored in Istanbul in a ceremony involving Archbishop Aram Atesyan, and significantly, Armenia's minister responsible for dealing with the Armenian diaspora, Hranuysh Hagopyan. Many Turkish Armenian intellectuals, newspaper, and some of the honorees questioned whether the presence of the diaspora minister was desirable. From Hurriyet Daily News:

“I would prefer not to have a diaspora minister in Turkey,” author Mıgırdıç Margosyan told the Hürriyet Daily News before receiving his gold medal from Armenian minister Hranuysh Hagopyan.

“I’ve been living on the land that [we have] been living on for thousands of years. I am not in the diaspora. This is a terrible irony,” Margosyan said. The writer also directed his criticism toward the Turkish government, saying the lack of a Turkish state official at the ceremony was disappointing.

. . . .

After attending the Global Summit of Women in Istanbul, Hagopyan handed out medals to 15 Turkish Armenians, including Margosyan, composers Garo Mafyan and Cenk Taşkan and Alis Manukyan, the first Armenian female vocalist in Turkey’s State Opera and Ballet.

“We are living in the lands where we have to live. And we continue to pay our debt to these lands,” Mafyan, who is arguably the best-known popular music composer, told the Daily News. He added that he is ready to do everything he can to make sure dialogue continues between Turkey and Armenia.

“It is [still] very important to receive an award from Armenia for contributing to Turkish popular music,” he said.

Turks of Armenian descent or Turkish Armenians or Armenian Turks or however one would group them are a population of at least 60 million people. Most belong to the Armenian Orthodox Church, which has a Turkish Patriarchate in Istanbul apart from Yerevan. Some Turkish Armenians are Catholics, and there are yet others of Armenian descent that do not enjoy minority status under Turkish law and whose numbers are not counted in official government numbers. This "hidden" Armenian minority, consists of people, sometimes referred to as crypto-Armenians, who converted to Islam in the latter half of the nineteenth-century and early part of the twentieth-century when Armenians began to face sharp discrimination, and eventually, Ottoman state-engineered ethnic cleansing.

Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, Armenians, along with Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews, enjoy "minority status" based on religion. The status granted these minorities rights certain rights vis-a-vis the new republican Turkish state, and essentially granted two separate legal regimes: one for ordinary Turkish citizens, and another for the minorities granted status under the Treaty of Lausanne. (Syriac Christians, Alevis, Caferis, as well as ethnic groups, such as the Kurds, were denied such rights.)

However, some Armenians, Greeks, and Jews complain of being treated as second-class citizens. These minorities are still sometimes accused of collaborating with foreign enemies, and even in the context of receiving EU accession monies designed to protect and promote minority rights, face criticism from some nationalist circles for seeking to undermine the Turkish state.Armenians, in particular, have long faced suspicion of being linked to Armenian terrorist groups and secretly desiring the dissolution of the Turkish state, which many Turks are taught has two main enemies: the external enemies of imperial Europe, and the internal enemies, i.e. minorities who see the disintegration of the country. To make matters worse, Turkish Armenians often get caught in the middle of Turkey's politics with Armenia and other countries, such as when Prime Minister Erdogan responded to a genocide resolution in Sweden by threatening to expel Armenian immigrants in radio interview last March. (This is not to say that the poor Armenian immigrants were not more caught.)

At the same time, Armenians also face criticism from Armenians in Armenia, as well as from the sizable Armenian diaspora. As a result, Turkish Armenians are torn between Turkish citizenship, their relation to the diaspora, of which they are not a part since, unlike even the vast majority of Armenians living in Armenia, they did not immigrate. The vast majority of Turkey's Armenian population are the descendents of Armenians who migrated to cosmopolitan Istanbul following the hard times of the 1890s and onward under the Ottoman Empire (and before 1915), and so escaped the massacres at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the mass dislocation into Syria, the Soviet Union, and scores of other countries that followed.

Vahe Sarukhanyan, writing for Heqt Online, has an interesting piece up discussing Istanbul Armenians as the "Diaspora's Outsiders." An excerpt:

Sociologist [Arus] Yumul says that for the worldwide Armenian diaspora, the Istanbul-Armenian community is akin to a "lost lamb", an "outsider". She says that other Armenians have taken them to task for being non-active in Armenian affairs and for cow-towing to the government in Ankara. Yumul says she agrees with these assessments when it comes to the Ottoman period, but that after Turkish independence Armenians not only didn’t get involved in Armenian politics but also Turkish affairs. It was kind of a survival strategy she noted.

Yumul added that the community is slowly integrating into the larger Turkish society and that mixed marriages are paving the way.

"At one time Armenian parents resisted but this too has faded. The next generation will be more like a hybrid, free to chose whether they are Armenian, Turk..."

She was quick to add that this doesn’t mean that Armenians will disappear in Turkey.

However, the use of Armenian as a daily language of communication is also on the decline; the number of Armenians who can’t speak the mother tongue is growing. Parents send their kids to Armenian elementary schools but afterwards many go to private or foreign high schools so that they won’t have problems with the Turkish language in college.

The 1990s were a turning point for the community in many ways. Armenians, like the other minority communities, began to voice their concerns, speak about the discrimination they faced, and even raise the taboo subject of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Twenty years ago, all this was unthinkable. What the next twenty will bring for the community remains a big question mark.

More evidence that Lausanne is outdated, and that its continued legal character is becoming more and more anachronistic as Turkey opens up . . .

On another note, Kadir Has University has announced plans to start teaching courses in Armenian. The classes are offered in the context of improving regional relations with Armenia.

For more on the Treaty of Lausanne's lasting impact in Turkish politics, see my post from 2008, "Article 301: An Anti-Imperialist Discourse." For the treaty's misused application in relation to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, see this past post. For more on Turkey's Armenian minority, click here.

Attack on the Prime Minister's Convoy

DHA Photo from Hurriyet Daily News

Prime Minister Erdogan's convoy was attacked yesterday while traveling through Kastamonu. One police officer died during a firefight that ensued with the assailants. The police in Kastamonu are blaming the PKK. The prime minister was not traveling with the convoy, and it appears that the attackers did not necessarily know the police-protected convoy belonged to the prime minister.

"He Loves You, He Beats You"

Human Rights Watch has released a report on domestic violence, a problem that has been gaining increased attention in recent years. As HRW reports, police too often neglect their responsibilities to protect women against violence, which has led to a plethora of stories of women who ended up dead despite their efforts to seek police protection. Following a June 2009 decision of the European Court of Human Rights, it is a state obligation to protect women when they report such violence. As HRW's report documents, problems with implementation of the ruling continue. From the report's summary:

“It always happened at night,” Hamiyet M. told Human Rights Watch. For 24 long years, Hamiyet’s husband had abused her by severely beating her and raping her almost daily. When she finally summoned the courage to go to police in her town in eastern Turkey, they sent her home, twice. The beatings continued, in one instance proving so severe she wound up in hospital where she spoke with a police officer for a third time. Yet again, she received neither sympathy nor help. “Are we supposed to deal with you all the time?” the officer scolded.

Some 42 percent of all women older than 15 in Turkey and 47 percent of women living in the country’s rural areas—approximately eleven million women in total—have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a husband or partner at some point in their lives, according to a 2009 survey conducted by a leading Turkish university.

Female domestic violence survivors, lawyers, and local experts on family violence interviewed for this report described husbands and family members inflicting brutal and long-lasting violence on women and girls that in some cases lasted for decades, affecting several generations of women. Researchers documented women and girls as young as 14 being raped; stabbed; kicked in the abdomen when pregnant; beaten with hammers, sticks, branches, and hoses to the point of broken bones and fractured skulls; locked up with dogs or other animals; starved; shot with a stun gun; injected with poison; pushed off a roof; and subjected to severe psychological violence. The violence occurred in all areas where researchers conducted interviews, and across income and education levels.

In recent years Turkey has taken important legislative steps towards addressing violence against women. But despite these impressive advances, most notably Law 4320 on the Protection of the Family (“Law 4320” or “protection law”), remaining gaps in the law and failures of implementation make the protection system unpredictable at best, and at times downright dangerous. Furthermore, this legislative process is undermined by the government’s failure to better prevent abuse in the first place, change discriminatory attitudes, and effectively address the barriers that deter women and girls from reporting abuse and accessing protection.

This report focuses on the civil remedies available in Turkey to survivors of domestic violence. These options—which aim to provide immediate protection from harm, create space for a victim to decide her course of action, and prevent an abuser hampering criminal or divorce proceedings with intimidation or threats—take two main forms. The first is physical protection in shelters, the second is civil protection orders—emergency measures intended to stop further abuse, which is common in domestic violence cases, including instructions to an abuser to stay away from the house and refrain from violence against the victim.

The research found that implementation of Law 4320 regularly falls short because enforcement officers, judges, and prosecutors neglect their duties, often due to lack of expertise or will to deal with cases of violence against women and girls in a manner that is effective and sensitive to the needs and human rights of victims. Women who do report family violence to police risk being turned away, and face poor enforcement of protection orders: indeed, some women have been murdered after obtaining a protection order against their killer. Shelters are lacking, and those that do exist often exclude certain groups of women, restrict movement and communications, and are vulnerable to security breaches. Environments in which women are supposed to report violence—particularly police stations and family courts—often lack the private space necessary to do so. In addition, differing understandings of the law—specifically, the scope of eligibility for protection orders—undermine its effectiveness and can exclude the most vulnerable victims of domestic violence.

Implementing Law 4320 was supposed to be a priority of the Ministry of Women and Family. Last March Selma Aliye Kavaf, who heads the ministry, said many women who reported abuse were not properly protected because the police to whom they reported did not in turn report to the Ministry, and so proper procedures were not followed. As far as I can tell, little progress has been made here. Further, under Turkish law, each municipality with a population of over 50,000 people is supposed to have a women's shelter, though this is still far from the case (see this post from last March). For news coverage of the report from Hurriyet Daily News, click here.

Pressure on Municipalities Extends Beyond BDP

Izmir Mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu addresses thousands of people who came together in central İzmir Monday to protest the recent police raid on the municipality. DHA photo from Hurriyet Daily News

From Hurriyet Daily News:

Approximately 50 employees of municipalities in the Aegean provinces of İzmir’s Metropolitan and Karabağlar municipalities as well as Aydın’s Kuşadası Municipality, including high-ranking officials, were detained Monday morning on corruption allegations that included interfering with public tenders.

The move came after a report prepared by the Court of Accounts, indicating corruption claims worth 40 million Turkish Liras in the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality.

While the police search continued on Tuesday, some 10 people were released after investigation. The probe surrounding 34 İzmir Municipality officials still continues.

“It is a politically oriented move aiming to disperse a fear of empire not only in the İzmir and Aydın but also among overall CHP-run municipalities in the country prior to the elections,” former Health Ministry undersecretary Aytun Çıray, who is also the CHP’s deputy candidate for İzmir, told the Hürriyet Daily News.

. . . .

The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, members, meanwhile, emphasized the role of judiciary in the move. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Tuesday said what happened in İzmir was a result of the court decision and the investigation carried out by İzmir Public Prosecutor Office could not be associated with the ruling government.

The AKP has announced that capture Izmir in the June parliamentary elections is a major goal for the party. Izmir, long seen as haven of trendy swimsuit-wearing, fish-eating "white Turks," has long been a CHP stronghold. The CHP has denounced the raids as political. Izmir mayor Aziz Kocaoglu has called for the release of those municipal officials detained in the raid.

Historic Low for Media Freedom in Turkey

PHOTO by Hasan Altinisik / Hurriyet Daily News

In commemoration of World Press Freedom Day, I have decided to take the time to briefly reflect on the state of media freedom in Turkey, an issue about which I have written about repeatedly (click here).

In October, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Turkey 138th of 175 countries assessed in its recent survey of press freedom in countries around the world. According to RSF, 47 members of the Turkish press are under arrest and waiting trial. Most of these work for Kurdish news outlets, and are being prosecuted under Turkey's Anti-Terrorism Law, which makes it illegal to make or disseminate what the law vaguely refers to as "terrorist propaganda." Since then, a record number of journalists have been arrested in conjunction with the Ergenekon investigation, including, most recently, Ahmet Şık and Nedim Sener, who the International Press Institute (IPI) honored last year with the World Press Freedom Hero Award.

In addition to the prosecution of journalists, Turkey is a world leader when it comes to its restrictions on the Internet. Though not China or Burma, Turkey's Internet policy borders on authoritarian and is getting worse. The government is planning a wide-scale Internet filtering system that will create user categories for all Turkish citizens and allow the government to better track their usage. Most disturbingly, under the new provisions, which are set to go into effect this August, the government will be able to censor content without users even knowing their government stands between them and the World Wide Web (see last Friday's post). And, if Internet was not enough, neither radio nor television have not escaped the Turkish government's heavy hand. Television broadcasts are routinely censored for being "morally objectionable," and a new law on broadcast media passed this February gives the government even more power to intervene.

Though many are focused on democracy in the Arab world at the moment, the rapidly declining state of media freedom in Turkey should make the world pay heed to the questionable state of Turkish democracy, what I have referred to here as a rising electoral authoritarianism that is polarizing the country in new ways and, if not curbed, has the potential of bringing the tremendous democratic gains of the past twelve years. While it is true Turkey chose a democratic trajectory after its application for EU membership was granted in Helsinki in 1999, since then Turkey's EU-driven democratization process has considerably slowed and many of the liberals that helped bring the AKP government to power in 2002 have fallen away from the party. If press freedom is any indicator of liberal democracy, liberalism is in a period of rapid decline. For more reflections on liberal democracy and the Turkish government's need to go beyond its current majoritarian understanding, click here.

For World Press Freedom Day events that have occurred in Washington this week, click here.

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.

How Turks Perceive Kurdish Demands

TESEV researchers Dilek Kurban and Yilmaz Ensarioglu have a new study analyzing Kurdish demands and discussing possible policy solutions in light of a series of roundtable discussions the researchers had with Turks regarding their perception of Kurdish demands.

The report, entitled "How Legitimate Are the Kurds' Demands?: The Kurdish Question Through the Lens of Turkey's West," follows up on the 2008 report TESEV published on possible solutions to the Kurdish question. That report was published right before the government's announced "Kurdish Opening," and had the government paid it more heed, it would have most likely been saved the mess it encountered last year. From this latest report:

Until recently, the Kurdish Question was mostly limited to the relations between Kurds, actually one group of Kurds, and the state, and it had not yet become a social problem. Some recent events particularly in Turkey’s western provinces point to the likelihood of tension, even conflict, between Turks and Kurds. Reaching a solution while keeping social harmony intact will be possible if different segments of society take part in the process of discussion and solution, that is to say, if everyone is ensured to have a chance to communicate their take on a solution.

While the lion’s share of responsibility in this regard falls upon the shoulders of political circles including first of all the government, there is no doubt that the media, intellectuals, universities and especially non-governmental organizations also have important roles to play.

Accordingly, we opened to debate the 2008 TESEV report, which effectively compiled Kurds’ opinions and demands, in western provinces where Kurds do not constitute the majority of the total residents. To that end, we held five roundtable discussions, two in İzmir and one each in Mersin, Trabzon and Ankara, with participants living in those cities and in neighboring cities. We invited individuals from as many different ethnic, cultural and political communities as possible, and aimed to bring participants into a discussion on both Kurds’ demands on the basis of the 2008 report and their own respective approaches, objections, concerns and expectations.

The main goal of preparing and publishing the Report was to identify as accurately as possible how the voices of Kurds, the group with a primary stake in the question, are perceived around Turkey, which of their demands are considered reasonable and which are deemed unacceptable, and to act as an intermediary helping with the presentation of the opinions of non-Kurdish segments of society on the Kurdish Question to the public opinion.

I have yet to review it, but thought I would go ahead and post for interested readers.