Friday, December 8, 2023
Nordic Monitor
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us
No Result
View All Result
Nordic Monitor
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
  • About Us

Erdoğan gov’t has not been receptive to UN visit on arbitrary detentions in Turkey for years

August 25, 2022
A A
Erdoğan gov’t has not been receptive to UN visit on arbitrary detentions in Turkey for years

Palais des Nations, Geneva. (UN photo)

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

 

Turkey has refused to allow an official visit of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had ruled in recent years against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in multiple cases of violations of the UN rules on human rights that Turkey, as a member state, is obligated to abide by.

The group has been trying to get permission and schedule a date for an official visit since November 2016 against the backdrop of mass arbitrary detentions in Turkey that have targeted critics, opponents and dissidents with blatant abuse of the criminal justice system.

Alarmed at the scale and magnitude of detentions in 2016, the working group officially filed a request to pay a visit on November 15, 2016 under the mandate provided to the UN by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Turkey is a party.

The Erdoğan government simply ignored the request and acted as though the letter had never existed.

 

The UN report revealed Turkey’s unwillingness to allow a visit by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in recent years: 

UN_working_group_request_visit

 

UN officials sent a reminder to Turkey on November 8, 2017 asking the Erdoğan government to respond to their year-old request. Turkey ignored the second letter as well. On March 6, 2020, the UN sent another reminder but received no response to that, either.

The Erdoğan government kept ignoring letters until the COVID-19 pandemic appeared, causing the death of millions and disrupting international travel. Then, in a quick change of heart in November 2020, when most countries had shut their borders, Turkey informed the UN that it was agreeing to the visit of the working group, knowing full well that no such visit could take place under pandemic conditions.

As expected, the working group requested to postpone the visit until the pandemic risks disappeared. A new request for a visit before the end of 2021 was conveyed to Turkey’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations by the group’s chair at a meeting on June 30, 2021 with Turkish diplomats. This time, Turkey rejected the request, saying that no such visit could be arranged for 2021 without offering a reasonable explanation for the postponement.

The exchange of communications has been ongoing since then.

 

A Turkish government-run unofficial detention site in 2016 where thousands of people were kept in inhumane conditions, tortured and ill-treated for weeks.

According to UN records, the last visit to Turkey by the working group took place 16 years ago, in October 2006. Although Turkey is one of the member states that extended a standing invitation to UN investigators and experts, that policy was not followed in the case of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

In recent years the UN group has found multiple arbitrary detentions in many cases submitted to the UN. Some of them involved members of the Gülen movement, a group that has been critical of the Erdoğan government and has been the main target of persecution, with hundreds of thousands of its members detained.

In 2020 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the deprivation of liberty due to Gülen links of three individuals was arbitrary, lacked a legal basis and violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

 

The last visit request by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2021 was rejected by the Turkish government: 

UN_working_group_request_visit

 

It further held that those with alleged links to the Gülen movement were being targeted on the basis of their political or other opinions, constituting a prohibited discriminatory ground. The opinion concerned three Turkish nationals — Abdulmuttalip Kurt, Akif Oruç and Faruk Serdar Köse — who were arrested by Turkish authorities on charges of membership in the Gülen movement.

In its opinion the working group called on the Turkish government to immediately release the complainants and accord them compensation, also urging the government to take urgent action vis-à-vis the threat posed by the coronavirus global pandemic in places of detention.

“The Working Group considers that, taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Kurt immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law,” the opinion stated.

President Erdoğan began to target followers of the Gülen movement after two corruption investigations became public knowledge on December 17 and 25, 2013, which implicated him, four of his ministers and other prominent figures from his government or support base. Accusing the movement of instigating the investigations, Erdoğan designated the movement an armed terrorist organization and seized all Gülen-affiliated media outlets, private lender Bank Asya and businesses partially or wholly owned by people affiliated with the movement.

 

Another unofficial detention site in Turkey.

After a false flag coup in 2016, Erdoğan intensified his crackdown on the movement, locking up hundreds of thousands of people affiliated with the movement and seizing their assets.

The Turkish government accepted such activities as having an account at Bank Asya, holding an administrative position at a Gülen movement-linked institution, subscribing to the Zaman daily or other perceived Gülenist publications, being a member of a trade union or other institution linked to the Gülen movement and using the encrypted messaging application ByLock as benchmarks for identifying and arresting tens of thousands of followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.

According to the UN working group none of those activities in itself could be construed as a criminal act but rather as the peaceful exercise of rights granted under human rights treaties.

“However … none of those activities in itself could be construed as a criminal act, but rather as the peaceful exercise of the rights protected by the Covenant and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Notably, the Government has not indicated that any of these actions by Mr. Kurt were violent or incited others to violence. In fact, there is nothing in the Government’s response that would indicate that all these actions were something other than the peaceful exercise of Mr. Kurt’s rights under the Covenant, including his rights to hold opinions and to freedom of association,” the group said.

“[I]t is clear to the Working Group that, even if Mr. Oruç did use the ByLock application, it would have been merely in exercise of his freedom of opinion and expression. Those rights, as defined in article 19 of the Covenant, constitute the foundation of every free and democratic society.”

The working group further found that those with alleged links to the Gülen movement including the complainants were targeted on the basis of their political or other opinion which is a prohibited discriminatory ground.

 

Victims were stripped to their underwear and tortured in the courtyard of the Kazan district gendarmerie outpost.

“The present case is the latest case concerning individuals with alleged links to the Hizmet [Gülen] movement that has come before the Working Group in the past two years. In all these cases, the Working Group has found that the detention of the individuals concerned was arbitrary, and it appears that a pattern is emerging whereby those with alleged links to the Hizmet movement are being targeted on the basis of their political or other opinion. Accordingly, the Working Group finds that the Government detained … on the basis of a prohibited ground for discrimination …”

Noting a significant increase in the number of cases brought before it concerning arbitrary detention in Turkey in the past three years, the working group expressed its grave concern at the pattern that all these cases follow and urged the government to implement its opinions without further delay.

In 2021 the group found similar violations in complaints filed by victims who were affiliated with the Gülen movement.

The arbitrary detentions are not confined to Turkish citizens. The Erdoğan government has also detained a number of foreign nationals in recent years in what is seen as hostage diplomacy to extract concessions from other countries. The detentions prompted the US State Department to at times warn American citizens against travel to Turkey for several reasons including arbitrary detentions in the country.

In 2018 travel advisory the State Department said, “The Government of Turkey has detained and deported US citizens without allowing access to lawyers or family members, and has not routinely granted consular access to detained US citizens who also possess Turkish citizenship.”

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Diaspora agency that runs covert recruitment programs with Turkish intelligence seeks young lobbyists in the US and Canada

Next Post

Don’t bother sending us ‘ordinary’ criminals, Turkey tells Sweden

Abdullah Bozkurt

Abdullah Bozkurt

[email protected]

Next Post
Don’t bother sending us ‘ordinary’ criminals, Turkey tells Sweden

Don't bother sending us 'ordinary' criminals, Turkey tells Sweden

Turkey’s jihadist charity IHH acknowledges establishing global orphanage network to raise fighters, similar to al-Qassam brigade tactics

Turkey’s jihadist charity IHH acknowledges establishing global orphanage network to raise fighters, similar to al-Qassam brigade tactics

December 8, 2023
US-sanctioned Hamas financier in Turkey secures multi-million lira property deal in Istanbul, with more on the way

US-sanctioned Hamas financier in Turkey secures multi-million lira property deal in Istanbul, with more on the way

December 7, 2023
Turkey’s wealthiest man faced terrorism probes amid government campaign to unlawfully seize $50 billion asset

Turkey’s wealthiest man faced terrorism probes amid government campaign to unlawfully seize $50 billion asset

December 6, 2023
Erdoğan signals a new era with Greece, citing the United States as the sole obstacle

Erdoğan signals a new era with Greece, citing the United States as the sole obstacle

December 5, 2023
Turkish gov’t operative, busted on trafficking charges in the US, confessed to crime, awaits sentencing

Turkish gov’t operative, busted on trafficking charges in the US, confessed to crime, awaits sentencing

December 3, 2023
Erdoğan seeks to sell armored carriers in Africa to save embattled Turkish-Qatari defense company

Former ambassador implies Turkey sent arms to Libya in violation of UN resolutions

December 1, 2023
Abu Ubaida of the al-Qassam Brigades: a poster boy for the Erdogan government, radical groups in Turkey

Abu Ubaida of the al-Qassam Brigades: a poster boy for the Erdogan government, radical groups in Turkey

November 30, 2023
Erdogan claims full credit for Thai hostage release despite reality suggesting otherwise

Erdogan claims full credit for Thai hostage release despite reality suggesting otherwise

November 29, 2023
Turkey’s Diyanet religious directorate stands firm with Hamas, issues anti-Israel fatwa

Record surge in Diyanet budget to serve Erdogan’s political objectives at home and abroad

November 28, 2023
Iran’s Quds Force mentored Turkish jihadist killed by Israeli drone in Lebanon, confidential documents reveal

Iran’s Quds Force mentored Turkish jihadist killed by Israeli drone in Lebanon, confidential documents reveal

November 26, 2023

Nordic Monitor

Nordic Monitor is a news web site and tracking site that is run by the Stockholm-based Nordic Research and Monitoring Network. It covers religious, ideological and ethnic extremist movements and radical groups, with a special focus on Turkey.

Tags

al-Qaeda Andrei Karlov Andrei Karlov China coup Cyprus Diyanet Egypt espionage Germany Greece Gülen Movement Hakan Fidan Hamas Hulusi Akar Iran IRGC Quds Force ISIL ISIS Isis al-qaida Israel Libya Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu MIT Muslim Brotherhood NATO President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Profiling Qatar Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Russia SADAT Saudi Arabia spying Spying Activities Suleyman Soylu Sweden Syria Torture Turkey Turkish Intelligence Agency Turkish intelligence agency MIT Ukraine United States Yasin al-Qadi

Recent News

Turkey’s jihadist charity IHH acknowledges establishing global orphanage network to raise fighters, similar to al-Qassam brigade tactics

Turkey’s jihadist charity IHH acknowledges establishing global orphanage network to raise fighters, similar to al-Qassam brigade tactics

December 8, 2023
US-sanctioned Hamas financier in Turkey secures multi-million lira property deal in Istanbul, with more on the way

US-sanctioned Hamas financier in Turkey secures multi-million lira property deal in Istanbul, with more on the way

December 7, 2023
Turkey’s wealthiest man faced terrorism probes amid government campaign to unlawfully seize $50 billion asset

Turkey’s wealthiest man faced terrorism probes amid government campaign to unlawfully seize $50 billion asset

December 6, 2023

Copyright © Nordic Research and Monitoring Network All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Extremism
  • Military
  • Terrorism and Crime
  • Intelligence
  • Foreign Policy
  • Contact Us
    • Give us a tip!
  • About Us

Copyright © Nordic Research and Monitoring Network All rights reserved.