AZG Armenian Daily #074, 26/04/2005

Press release

TURKEY: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS THREATENED WITH DEATH

Paris-Geneva, April 21, 2005. The Observatory for the Protection of Human
Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for
Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT),
expresses its deepest concern about recent death threats against four
executives of the Human Rights Association in Turkey (Insan Haklari Dernegi
– IHD).

According to the information received, Mrs. Kiraz Biçici, vice-president of
IHD, Mrs. Eren Keskin, chairperson of the Istanbul Branch of IHD, Mr. Doðan
Genç, member of the General Executive Board of IHD and Mr. Þaban Dayanan,
Board member of the Istanbul Branch of IHD, received death threatening
letters at their home and offices, on April 19 and April 21, 2005.

These letters were signed by an armed ultra-nationalist group called the
Turkish Revenge Brigade (Türk Ýntikam Tugayi – TIT), which claimed
responsibility for the armed attack perpetrated against the IHD headquarters
in Ankara in 1988, during which the then IHD President, Mr. Akin Birdal, was
very seriously wounded after having been shot with six bullets (See
Observatory Annual Report 1998-1999). According to the authors of the
letters, the recipients might not be as lucky as him, who survived this
attack.

The letters also referred to the events that occurred in Mersin,
South-Eastern Turkey, on March 21, 2005, after a group of children swept a
Turkish flag. These events led to an upsurge of ultra-nationalist activity
in Turkey; for instance, on April 6, 2005, five activists distributing
leaflets in the northern city of Trabzon, protesting against solitary
confinement and isolation in Turkey’s prisons, were reportedly nearly
lynched by a mob which thought they were burning a Turkish flag. The authors
of the above-mentioned letters stated that every provision must be made to
protect the Turkish flag, which is, according to them, “a symbol of a
nation’s history written with blood”.

Moreover, these threats followed other threatening letters that were sent to
the IHD headquarters’ email addresses during the last two months.

The Observatory is deeply concerned about those threats, which contribute to
seriously deteriorate the situation of Turkish human rights defenders, in
particular IHD members, who are already subjected to different kinds of
pressure (intimidation, judicial harassment, surveillance, etc.).

The Observatory calls on the Turkish authorities to:

– Guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical and psychological integrity
of Mrs. Kiraz Biçici, Mrs. Eren Keskin, Mr. Doðan Genç and Mr. Þaban
Dayanan, as well as all other IHD members and Turkish human rights
defenders;

– Conduct an independent enquiry into those events, so as to identify those
responsible, bring them to trial and sanction them according to law;

– Ensure the implementation of the provisions of the Declaration on Human
Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in
particular its articles 1, which states that “everyone has the right,
individually or in association with others, to promote and to strive for the
protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms” and
12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to
ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually
or in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation,
de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary
action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights
referred to in the present Declaration”;

– Guarantee the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in
accordance with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other
international human rights instruments ratified by Turkey.