UN Slams Turkey's
Anti-Terror Laws, Urges Reform February 23, 2006 AFP
ANKARA -- Turkey's definition of
terrorism is too broad and may lead to the prosecution of people with no direct
involvement in terror acts, a UN envoy said in Ankara on Thursday.
Speaking at the end of a one-week fact-finding mission, Martin Scheinin, the UN
special rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism, singled out for
criticism an anti-terror act, passed in 1991, aimed in particular at quelling a
bloody Kurdish rebellion in the country's southeast.
The law, he said, is too broad and vague with respect to local terrorist groups
and fails to adequately address the international struggle against terrorism.
It "defines terrorism based on its purpose or aims rather than referring to
specific criminal acts", he said. "This may lead to a situation where people are
convicted for terrorist crimes without sufficient connection to acts of terror."
Scheinin estimated from his findings in Diyarbakir, the main city of the
predominantly Kurdish southeast, that "only a small number of charges of
terrorism relate to actual acts of terror".
Eager to boost its bid to join the European Union, Turkey has several times
amended its anti-terror laws, in particular easing punishments for the press and
introducing compensations for Kurdish villagers who have suffered losses in army
operations.
The security forces, however, have complained that democratization reforms in
the anti-terror act and the penal code are hampering efforts against terrorism
and other criminal acts.
Scheinin charged that there was "lack of transparency and clarity" about how
Turkish groups are classified as terrorist.
"We got estimates that their total number is maybe 40 or 50, but still it
remains unclear where the list ends," he said.
Besides Kurdish militants, extreme-left and Islamist underground groups are also
active in Turkey.
Scheinin offered to help Ankara reform its anti-terror legislation in line with
international norms and urged the government to sign several multilateral
accords guaranteeing civic and political rights.
He praised Turkey's progress in improving human rights standards, but noted that
it was yet to set up a fully independent body to probe allegations of torture
and a mechanism involving civic groups to monitor places of detention.
A long-term solution to the Kurdish conflict, he said, should ensure that Kurds
freely use their language and have access to education "through at least initial
immersion in the mother tongue".
