British lawyers condemn human rights violations in Turkey

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey’s government is inflicting “systematic human rights violations” on its judiciary, police and media, according to a scathing report by senior British lawyers that was commissioned by one of president Erdogan’s exiled opponents, the Guradian reports.

The critical, 95 page-long survey alleges that the AK party government has interfered to produce “supine” courts, censored websites, restricted freedom of expression, stifled corruption investigations and subjected detainees to degrading treatment.

Their inquiry was funded by the U.S.-based Journalist and Writers Foundation, whose honorary chairman is the Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen – a former ally of Erdogan who has become a fortright critic. Last year, a Turkish court was reported to have issued a warrant for Gülen’s arrest.

The lawyers’ report focuses on Gülen’s Hizmet movement and claims that his followers have suffered systematic purges that have removed as many as 40,000 employees from public positions, led to mass arrests and in some cases periods of detention.

The media and criminal justice system in particular, the report says, have been targeted. Radio and TV stations have had broadcasts suspended. Social media have been subject to bans which authorise removal of content from websites in some cases without having first obtained a court order, it states.

One of the most prominent victims the report identifies is Hidayet Karaca, chief executive of Samanyolu Media Group, who was arrested last December on the “dubious allegation” of establishing a terrorist organization.

Karaca, Ekrem Dumanlı, editor in chief of Zaman newspaper, and other newspaper journalists, producers and scriptwriters of a television drama are accused of conspiring against an Islamist group. Karaca and 63 detained police officers remain in prison, the report said, “notwithstanding that an order was made by a competent court” for their release on bail.

The report estimates that approximately 40,000 police officers, civil servants, judges and public prosecutors have been removed from their posts since the December 2013 corruption investigation into Erdogan’s close circle.

Alp Aslandogan, a spokesman for the Journalist and Writers Foundation, told the Guardian: “There has been subjugation of the judiciary and the media. The Gulen movement has been chosen as a scapegoat to justify the government’s authoritarian actions.”