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The United Nations called on Turkey on Tuesday to end its 18-month old state of emergency that was first declared after July 2016 coup attempt has been extended regularly as the Erdogan government used the emergency crackdown on protesters, journalists and opposition leaders. The UN also released a report that criticized Turkey over human rights abuse during the emergency period.
The report says that during the 18-month state of emergency, nearly 160,000 people have been arrested; 152,000 civil servants dismissed, many arbitrarily; and teachers, judges, and lawyers dismissed or prosecuted. The report also documents the use of torture and ill-treatment in custody, including severe beatings, threats of sexual assault and actual sexual assault, electric shocks and waterboarding by police, gendarmerie, military police and security forces. It also notes that about 300 journalists have been arrested under allegations that their publications contained “apologist sentiments regarding terrorism” or other “verbal act offenses” or for “membership” in terrorist organizations. Over 100,000 websites were reportedly blocked in 2017, including a high number of pro-Kurdish websites and satellite TV channels. Covering the period January to December last year, the report also states that the April 2017 referendum which extended the President’s executive powers into both the legislature and the judiciary as seriously problematic, resulting in interference with the work of the judiciary and curtailment of parliamentary oversight over the executive branch.
At the release of the reports, the UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said, “One of the most alarming findings of the report is how Turkish authorities reportedly detained some 100 women who were pregnant or had just given birth, mostly on the grounds that they were ‘associates’ of their husbands, who are suspected of being connected to terrorist organizations…….Some were detained with their children and others violently separated from them. This is simply outrageous, utterly cruel, and surely cannot have anything whatsoever to do with making the country safer”.
Turkey’s foreign ministry on Tuesday slammed a United Nations rights report on its state of emergency as rife with unfounded allegations and said the criticism chimed with propaganda efforts of terrorist organizations.
