HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN TURKEY HAVE NOT DECREASED, SAY NGOS

Hurriyet Daily News
Feb 21 2010
Turkey

According to individuals and organizations focusing on human rights
and marginalized groups in Turkey, official pressure against them
continues despite the Ergenekon case. While some claim the case
has reduced the number of threats they receive, others disagree,
saying the number of threats they receive remains constant While
some civil society actors and intellectuals focusing on human rights
and marginalized groups say "systematic threats" against them have
decreased with the ongoing Ergenekon case, others report the level of
harassment is unchanged. Alarmingly many agree that "official pressure"
on human rights organizations is even getting worse.

Etyen Mahcupyan, editor in chief of the weekly Turkish- and
Armenian-language Agos, as well as a columnist for the daily Taraf,
said the Ergenekon investigation has decreased the systematic threats
made against Agos.

Regarding the recent hacking of Agos’ Web site, Mahcupyan told the
Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review it is not possible to determine
whether an individual committed the attack or an organization until
whoever is responsible is apprehended.

Mahcupyan defines a systematic and coordinated threat as one sent to
more than one institution.

"We have the usual number [of threats against Agos] via e-mail, so they
do not count," he said, adding that whenever the Armenian issue tops
the agenda, such as before April 24 when Armenians commemorate what
many claim to be the Armenian genocide, threats toward the newspaper
rise. At the same time, however, the newspaper becomes temporarily
"forgotten" whenever the Kurdish problem begins taking the country’s
attention.

Baskın Oran, a political scientist, said the Ergenekon investigation
has recently stopped the threats he had been receiving since 2004,
yet official pressure continues. "When the mechanism called the ‘deep
state’ provokes people, individual reactions and insults increase
incredibly," he told the Daily News. "When the deep state is tame,
they decrease. This is a clear trend. Of course, we cannot say whether
these are organized or not. I am just telling you what I sense and
I believe to be true."

Oran said insulting his personality has recently become "officially
legal" following a Supreme Court of Appeals decision that effectively
declared him responsible for the harassment he receives due to his
writings about the Armenian issue in Agos. In its decision, the
court also quashed a lower court ruling that had ordered journalist
Mustafa Balbay, who is now under arrest as an Ergenekon suspect,
to pay compensation to Oran after the former accused the academic of
being "bought by foreign powers" during a 2006 television program.

The Ergenekon investigation began in 2007 into a suspected gang
known as Ergenekon that was allegedly plotting to overthrow the
ruling government.

Sami Tan, president of the Istanbul Kurdish Institute, also said
threats toward his institution have decreased, but added that the
present situation has become so terrible with the recent arrests of
pro-Kurdish politicians that he even "yearns for the days of the 1980
military coup."

Akın Birdal, a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party,
or BDP, said the threats may have decreased but human rights violations
have not. "The guarantee for human rights and liberties is the law
itself, and you see the state of the law," he said, pointing to the
recent government-judiciary tension.

"Everybody is trying to have their own judiciary in the name of
the law. Under such circumstances, one cannot say human rights and
liberties are guaranteed," he said.

Ozturk Turkdogan, president of the Human Rights Association, or Ä°HD,
said the organization "always receives threatening messages," and he
had observed no difference between 2007 and today.

Turkdogan said many of their members were arrested in 2009 for no
crime other than expressing their opinions. "When I look at the actual
results, there is no change in terms of threats, but there is an
increase in the number of arrested people. This show the violations
of freedom of speech are increasing and that the efforts of human
rights defenders are not being tolerated."