370
Amnesty International Report 2017/18
Republican People’s Party (CHP), which went
ahead peacefully, provided a notable
exception to this trend. Traditional May Day
demonstrations in Istanbul were held outside
the centre of the city, with the agreement of
the major trade unions.
The annual Istanbul Pride march was
banned for a third successive year on
spurious security grounds. Police used
unnecessary and excessive force, firing
rubber bullets, and made arbitrary arrests,
targeting small groups of people attempting
to celebrate Pride. In November, the
authorities in Ankara imposed an indefinite
ban on events organized by lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)
solidarity organizations ahead of a planned
LGBTI-themed film festival which was due to
take place in the city. Again, the authorities
cited spurious security reasons.
In June and July, more than 200,000
people took part in a 400km “Justice March”
between Ankara and Istanbul. The march
was announced following the conviction and
sentencing to 25 years’ imprisonment of CHP
parliamentarian Enis Berberoğlu; he had
been charged with espionage after passing
on to journalists a video that purportedly
showed the transfer of weapons to Syria in
National Intelligence Organization trucks. In
October, his conviction was overturned on
appeal and a retrial ordered.
TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT
Instances of torture and other ill-treatment,
especially in police custody, continued to be
reported, although at a markedly lower level
than in the weeks following the July 2016
coup attempt. The Turkish authorities
continued to deny permission for the
European Committee for the Prevention of
Torture to publish its report on torture
allegations following the coup attempt. There
was no effective national preventive
mechanism with a mandate for monitoring
places of detention. There were no available
statistics regarding investigations into
allegations of torture. There was no evidence
that allegations of torture were being
effectively investigated.
In August, NGOs reported that soldiers and
police officers beat at least 30 people in the
village of Altınsu/Şapatan in Hakkari province
in southeast Turkey following a clash with the
PKK in which two members of the security
forces died. Witnesses reported that villagers
were taken out of their homes, arbitrarily
detained and beaten in the village square,
and that 10 of them were taken into police
custody. Images of the villagers’ injuries
resulting from their beatings were shared on
social media. A statement from the
Governor’s office denied the allegations of
torture, and maintained that news reports
supporting the allegations were “terrorist
propaganda”.
IMPUNITY
In the face of extreme political pressure,
prosecutors and judges were even less
inclined than in previous years to investigate
alleged human rights violations by law
enforcement officials or bring to justice those
responsible. Intimidation of lawyers, including
detentions and the bringing of criminal cases
against them, further deterred lawyers from
bringing criminal complaints. No progress
was made to investigate pervasive allegations
of human rights violations during round-the-
clock curfews in the southeast of Turkey
during 2015 and 2016. More than five years
after Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul
Convention to Combat Violence against
Women, its implementation remained flawed,
and reports of violence against women
continued to rise.
In April, the trial of a police officer accused
of killing Berkin Elvan began in Istanbul.
Berkin Elvan died of his injuries after being
hit by a tear gas canister at the scene of a
Gezi Park protest in June 2013. The
investigation had been severely delayed by
the failure to obtain CCTV footage from the
scene.
More than two years after the fatal shooting
on 28 November 2015 of Tahir Elçi, human
rights lawyer and Chair of the Diyarbakır Bar
Association, no suspects had been identified.
Delays or failure to obtain CCTV footage
continued to hamper the investigation.
Amnesty International Report 2017/18
371
In July, the government submitted
information in regard to 34 cases brought to
the European Court of Human Rights; these
cases involved alleged violations of the right
to life, prohibition of torture and the right to
liberty and security in the southeast of Turkey
during the curfews in 2015 and 2016.
The organization We Will Stop Femicide
reported that murders of women were
increasing, while media attention to such
cases declined. It reported that 392 women
had been killed in the year up to 25
November.
ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS
Abuses by armed groups continued, although
the number of indiscriminate attacks, and
attacks targeting the general population, was
lower than in recent years.
In January, 39 people were killed and over
70 injured after a gunman opened fire in a
popular nightclub in Istanbul. The armed
group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility
for the attack.
Also in January, two people were killed and
10 injured by attackers targeting the İzmir
Courthouse. The Kurdistan Freedom
Falcons (TAK), an offshoot of the PKK,
claimed responsibility for the attack.
In June, the PKK claimed responsibility for
the killing of Necmettin Yılmaz, a teacher,
after his kidnapping from the province of
Tunceli/Dersim in southeast Turkey.
SUMMARY DISMISSALS
Under emergency decrees, public sector
workers continued to face summary dismissal
for alleged unspecified links to terrorist
groups. Nearly 20,000 workers were
dismissed during the course of the year,
bringing the total number since July 2016 to
107,000. Many workers were effectively
prevented from continuing their professions,
and struggled to find other jobs after being
branded “terrorists” as a result of their
dismissal. In January, the authorities
announced a seven-person appeal
Commission to assess the dismissals. The
Commission was not established until July,
and at the end of the year had ruled on fewer
than 100 of the reported 100,000 appeals
submitted to it. There was widespread
criticism that the Commission lacked the
necessary independence and capacity to
carry out the task. In June, rejecting the
Köksal v. Turkey application as inadmissible,
the European Court of Human Rights ruled
that there was no reason to believe that the
Commission would not be an effective
remedy. The decision of the Court left the
door open to a future reassessment by the
Court of the effectiveness of the Commission.
INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE
Many of the estimated 500,000 people
displaced from their homes in areas under
the curfews across the southeast of Turkey in
2015 and 2016 lacked access to adequate
housing and livelihoods. Many were unable to
return to their homes that had been
destroyed during or after military operations
during which state security forces clashed
with armed individuals affiliated to the PKK.
The authorities lacked a comprehensive plan
as to how the residents would be able to
return to their homes.
In the Sur district of Diyarbakır, residents
who had already been displaced from their
homes during the curfew lost their homes a
second time when they were forcibly evicted
as part of a redevelopment scheme affecting
the whole district. In May, hundreds of
residents had their water and electricity
supplies cut off in an apparent attempt to
force them out.
REFUGEES AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS
Turkey continued to host one of the world’s
largest refugee populations, with over
3,300,000 registered Syrian refugees alone.
Despite new initiatives to improve the
situation of refugees, many faced insufficient
access to livelihoods, housing, health care,
and education for their children. Except for
Syrians, refugees did not have access to fair
and efficient procedures for the
determination of their status. There were
continued reports of forced returns of
refugees and asylum-seekers, including to
Syria. International humanitarian NGOs