According to Amnesty International’s 2021-2022 Report, very important problems in the judicial system in Turkey continue. The report states that a law that allows the dismissal of public officials, including judges and prosecutors, without judicial review for alleged links with “terrorist” organizations, has been passed, extending the powers of the state of emergency for one more year.
The report states that dissidents, journalists, lawyers, jurists, human rights defenders and others are faced with baseless investigations, trials and convictions.
In the report, Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was convicted within the scope of the pressure against the opposition, it is also reported that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which monitors the implementation of the Demirtaş-Turkey Decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of December 2020, reiterated its call for the immediate release of Demirtaş.
Upon the Supreme Court upholding the sentence of human rights defender and HDP deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for a tweet he shared in 2016, it is explained that Gergerlioğlu was dismissed as a deputy in the General Assembly of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and sent to prison, and he was released after three months as per the Constitutional Court Decision.
The report reveals that there have been serious violations of freedom of expression, in this context, it gives as an example that the ECHR ruled that the right to personal liberty and security and freedom of expression of journalists Ahmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak in prison were violated.
In the report, which also mentions violations of freedom of assembly and association, it is stated that in December, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe officially announced that a violation procedure would be initiated against Turkey because it did not comply with the ECHR decision to release human rights defender Osman Kavala.
The report gives the example of Garibe Gezer, who was found dead in his cell in prison regarding torture and ill-treatment, and states that the prosecutor’s office gave a decision of non-prosecution in the file regarding the allegations that she was systematically subjected to torture and sexual assault by the prison guards.
The report states that there were enforced disappearances, that former Prime Ministry legal counsel Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, accused of being associated with the Gulen movement, emerged in Ankara Sincan Prison in September, nine months after his enforced disappearance, but the authorities denied that Küçüközyiğit was under official surveillance.
The report also emphasizes that the fate and whereabouts of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, who has been missing since August 2019 within the scope of enforced disappearance, is still unknown as of the end of the year.
You can access Amnesty International’s 2021-2022 Report here:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/turkey/report-turkey/
