[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 18, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2232-S2233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HUMAN RIGHTS IN TURKEY

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on February 23, 1998 in Ankara, 
Turkey, a penal court handed down an important decision regarding human 
rights. Eleven board members of Turkey's largest independent human 
rights group, the Human Rights Association, were acquitted of charges 
of disseminating separatist propaganda and inciting racist and ethnic 
enmity at a December 1996 meeting. A request by prosecutors to close 
the organization was also rejected.
  Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz has pledged to make progress in 
protecting human rights, and the February 23rd decision is a 
commendable step forward by the Turkish Government in that process. 
Hopefully, the decision will encourage human rights advocates to pursue 
reforms in Turkey and protect them from similar persecution in the 
future. An active civil society in which people can organize and 
express their opinions without fear of prosecution and official 
harassment is essential to the fulfillment of Prime Minister Yilmaz's 
goal.
  Unfortunately, this step forward was recently marred by a step back. 
On

[[Page S2233]]

March 12, 1998, a Turkish court acquitted ten policemen who were 
accused of beating and sexually abusing a group of teenagers. According 
to an article in the ``Washington Post'', the teenagers were arrested 
in December 1995 on charges of scrawling leftist graffiti and of 
belonging to a radical leftist armed group, a charge for which they 
were later acquitted. Over the course of the eleven days in which they 
were detained by police, the teenagers were allegedly blindfolded, 
stripped, molested, raped with police batons, and subjected to electric 
shocks to the genitals.
  According to the State Department's 1997 Country Report on Human 
Rights Practices, a judge in the case not only allowed the policemen to 
remain on active duty during the trial, he also relieved them of their 
obligation to personally appear in the courtroom. While these ten 
policemen walk freely, the teenagers will struggle with the physical 
and emotional consequences of their ordeal for years to come.
  Turkish officials have made some attempts to reduce abuses 
perpetrated by security officials against detainees. However, despite a 
constitutional ban on torture, improvements in government cooperation 
with foreign human rights inspection teams and new police training 
programs, torture remains common. According to the State Department, 
the climate of impunity fostered by the rarity of convictions of police 
or other security officials for killings and torture, ``remains the 
single largest obstacle to reducing human rights abuses.''
  Mr. President, I welcome Prime Minister Yilmaz's pledge to make 
progress on implementing human rights reforms. I applaud the recent 
decision to acquit the members of the Human Rights Association. 
However, as the brutal incident involving the teenagers illustrates, 
there is a great deal more to be done. Turkish officials must take an 
active, visible, and sustained role in addressing all facets of human 
rights--from promoting civil and political liberties to upholding the 
rule of law. Lasting reforms will not be realized in Turkey until Prime 
Minister Yilmaz's pledge is backed by consistent efforts to bring human 
rights violators to justice.

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