UPHOLDING THE LAW, NOT BREAKING IT
By Fazile Zahir
Asia Times, HongKong
Feb 14 2007
FETHIYE, Turkey – Most police forces pride themselves on their
reputations for toughness, and the Turkish police are no exception.
The unfortunate film Midnight Express gave them an image (at least in
the mind of foreigners) as merciless torturers, but this exaggerates
the truth of most police officers’ behavior. They are, however,
heavy-handed and often rude.
Most Turks are weary of dealings with the police – certainly most
believe that if they are arrested they will probably be subjected to
some level of brutality either during or after the arrest. Yet times
and attitudes are changing, both among the public and the police
themselves.
The recent assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has brought
some of these changes to the attention of the public.
Increasingly, senior police officers are being asked to be accountable
for their own and their force’s actions. Immediately after the arrest
of Samast Ogun, 17, Dink’s alleged assassin, by Trabzon police, the
head of security in that region, Resat Altay, was withdrawn from the
province by the central government.
Trabzon is the same province where another youth, this one 16,
murdered a Catholic priest last year, and it appears that the state
believes once is a mistake but twice is just plain careless. In a
statement to the press prepared by the Ministry of the Interior, it
was announced that two inspectors were being sent to the province to
carry out a wide-ranging investigation, including looking into whether
the security and police forces made mistakes or were neglectful.
The announcement has caused serious discontent among other heads of
police forces. At the annual conference of security personnel held
in Ankara on January 27, they chose to speak out, describing Resat
Altay’s recall seriously unfair. They said they were unhappy at the
influence of politics on police forces and believed they were being
undermined by political interference. The head of security forces in
Afyon, Natik Canca, said: "Attacks on the police have gone up … in
2004 there were 6,100 attacks, in 2005 this increased to 7,030 and
in 2006 this figure was 9,650 … despite the number of assaults and
incidences of abuse, no one is doing anything to protect us. It’s
very depressing that we often have to let these people walk free."
The chief of police in Artvin, Necmettin Emre, felt that the
incidents were caused by the new low status that the police were
being given. "We’re not ordinary civil servants, and yet each year the
public prosecutor gives an account of me to the provincial governor –
he gives me a report card – and this demeans me." His comments were
supported by the views of the Mersin police head, Suleyman Ekizer. "How
dare anyone prepare a report on the head of security?"
The provincial governor of Trabzon, Huseyin Yavuzdemir, is already
quite sure whom the blame for the assassination lies with: the European
Union. He complained that new laws mean police can no longer tail
suspicious people as they have previously. Now, he grumbled, they
have to get permission from the judiciary before they can carry out
surveillance operations. "We are not allowed to discomfort people
anymore."
Similar comments were made anonymously at the Ankara security
conference, where one chief policemen told newspapers, "The new
‘European’ measures have tied our hands. We are like uniformed
mannequins now – people commit crimes while looking us right in the
eye." The same law-enforcement officer also said the power to stop
and search has been reduced, warrants to confiscate possessions made
harder to obtain, and surveillance methods severely curtailed as a
result of increasing European harmonization.
These are not the only changes. Increasingly people are prepared to
complain about their treatment while in the hands of the police.
Since 2002, citizens have had the right to bring court cases against
those arms of the state that they accuse of abusing them, and in the
past four years, 115 cases seeking restitution from the Ministry of
the Interior have come to court.
In 29 cases the verdict was against the ministry, which has had to pay
750,000 liras (US$536,000) in compensation. Thirty-five cases were
dismissed from court, and 51 are still ongoing. Although individual
accountability is still largely unknown, the Ministry of the Interior
may lead the way in this matter. Fed up with the compensation it has
had to pay out, the ministry is prosecuting three staff members it
holds responsible for creating the circumstances of the successful
cases.
According to statistics published at the end of 2006 by the General
Directorate of Security (head of all police forces), it is apparent
that it is still very difficult to take successful action against
individual police officers. In 2005, 181 police officers had cases
of alleged torture and abuse brought against them – only 35 of these
cases are still continuing; the others fell apart. In the first nine
months of 2006, the number of court actions brought against police
officers fell to 24, and 19 were dropped for lack of evidence, while
in the other five cases the officers were acquitted. Even internal
investigations by the Ministry of the Interior, of which there were
93 in 2005 and 30 in 2006, all ended with no action taken against
the officers.
While the failure rate of proceedings against the police is still
unaccountably high, the figures (and even the assaults against the
police) indicate a new temerity among the general public. Slowly
in some quarters it is becoming understood that police authority
and police brutality can be challenged – and the police just don’t
like it. It seems that the higher up in the Turkish police force
one progresses, the more accountable one becomes, and it is hoped
that some of this new sense of responsibility will trickle down to
the lower ranks before too long. After all, the police should be
upholding the law, not breaking it themselves.
Fazile Zahir is of Turkish descent, born and brought up in London.
She moved to live in Turkey in 2005 and has been writing full-time
since then.