Trial Observation Report: Turkish Court Silences Female Advocate

FOREWORD

The Delegation’s visit to Turkey was prescient in a number of ways, some of which were coincidental in nature while others are derived from the important work conducted by human rights lawyers and organisations and previous KHRP delegations.

The basis of this trial observation mission results from a December 1999 report published by the Legal Aid Project for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces.1 The issue of sexual violence against women by the State in Turkey has since received some the publicity it rightly deserves and requires.

The Delegation sought in part to continue the essential monitoring of this issue undertaken previously by the KHRP delegation visit in December 2001.2 The 2001 report highlights matters that were again evident during the Delegation’s discussions with human rights groups and attendance at the preliminary hearing in the Istanbul State Security Court. This emphasised the importance of the need to continuingly monitor the issue of woman’s rights and sexual violence in Turkey. KHRP intends to build on the existing foundation not seek to replicate what has gone before but to build on it and highlight what has, or perhaps more importantly, has not changed in the intervening period.

This report seeks to update and expand on the specific issue of women’s rights within the broader context of the prevailing situation in the country. In this regard the proceedings observed by the Delegation brought together the previous reports and investigations, providing a microcosm of the wider picture: women’s rights; Kurdish rights; sexual violence; the independence of human rights lawyers.

Kerim Y ildiz
Executive Director
Kurdish Human Rights Project

Mark Muller
Vice President
Bar Human Rights Committee

1 ‘Sexual Violence: Perpetrated by the State’.
2 ‘State Violence Against Women in Turkey and Attacks on Human Rights Defenders of Victims of Sexual Violence in Custody’, KHRP December 2001.

I. Background to the Visit

To a significant extent, the legal, political and social background to the Delegation’s visit was set out in the KHRP December 2001 report. Yet, there are a number of issues that have arisen during the course of 2002 that provide a contextual framework which should inform the reading of this report.

Three issues in particular are worthy of note here: the recent views of the European Union in respect of Turkey’s accession to the Union, the position taken by international human rights organisations on the state of human rights in Turkey and the recent general election.
Firstly, the European Union has recently declined to offer Turkey an indication as to when it may accede.3 This was based, at least in part, on real and ongoing concerns over its human rights record. The second matter was the September 2002 Amnesty International publication, a damming report in which torture in Turkey was categorised as “systematic.”4 Thirdly, during the preparation of this report there has been a general election in Turkey. The victorious party has declared its commitment to Turkey joining the EU and its acknowledgement of the importance of human rights.

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3 The discussions culminated in the meeting held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2002.
4 AI Index EUR 44/040/2002, published on 01/09/2002.