Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 31 2015
Human rights defense before UN
PELÄ°N CENGÄ°Z
January 31, 2015, Saturday
Last week, a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session was held in
Geneva by the United Nations (UN) member states to assess Turkey’s
human rights record.
The UPR is a process for countries to discuss their human rights
issues and to provide feedback to them so that they might improve.
There are a lot of concerns about human rights in Turkey.
The UPR sessions, the first of which was held in May 2010 by the UN
Human Rights Council, take place in every four years. I was among the
journalists, civil rights groups’ representatives and activists from
Ä°stanbul watching the latest UPR concerning Turkey on Jan. 27,
broadcast live on the Internet. A total of 193 UN member states raised
questions and offered suggestions aimed at advancing human rights in
Turkey, which, in return, responded to the comments. Turkish Deputy
Prime Minister charged with human rights issues Bülent Arınç was
present at the session to respond to the questions and suggestions.
The suggestions were largely regarding freedom of speech, freedom of
belief, censorship, government pressure on the media and the Internet,
police use of excessive force, crackdowns on demonstrations and
marches, discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation,
gender-based violence and violations of the rights of women and
children. Arınç’s responses were in general not considered by the
attendees to be satisfactory and were criticized by civil rights
groups’ representatives. Indeed, Arınç’s explanations were no
different from the statements he usually gives to pro-government media
outlets.
In response to a written question posed by the US and Britain
regarding the practices against Jewish people in Turkey, Arınç said
`There has never been animosity against the Jewish people in Turkey.
On the contrary, Turkey has always hosted them. Anti-Semitic discourse
is condemned by top level officials.’ However, his response was not
found to be realistic.
With respect to criticism about restrictions on free speech, Arınç
said `There is an absolute pluralism in Turkey in terms of media.’ And
he pursued the official argument, adding, `They were not jailed for
professional activities,’ while commenting on imprisoned journalists.
Having employed hate speech in the past when he said that the Peoples’
Democratic Party (HDP) had garnered 9 percent of the vote in the
presidential election because they received the support of LGBT
people, Arınç, while in Geneva, asserted that not having specified
legal regulations regarding LGBT people does not mean that their
rights are being violated.
The only country whose question received a different reply from Arınç
was Armenia, whose suggestions have long been rejected by Turkey. When
the Armenian delegate demanded that Turkey lift the ongoing blockade
against his country, recognize the Armenian genocide and tackle the
murder case of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, Arınç said that
the `blockade’ was only a baseless claim, because there are direct
flights between the two countries. With regard to the slain
journalist, Arınç only said, `Our prime minister’s message on the
recent anniversary of Hrant Dink’s death highlighted how much Turkey
values the issue.’ What Arınç ignored was the fact that what is needed
is not a message to be delivered but for a fair investigation to be
carried out of the Dink murder case.
During the UPR session, the harshest criticism of Turkey came from the
European Union (EU) countries. Ireland, Norway and Sweden were the
leaders warning Turkey on free speech, while 11 countries also
presented advice concerning discrimination based on sexual orientation
and sexual identity.
Arınç left unanswered the suggestions coming from Germany, Croatia and
Slovenia regarding Turkey’s recognition of conscientious objection.
Another highlight of the UPR session was that the Azerbaijani delegate
praised Turkey’s `works on human rights’ so much that he exceeded his
time limit.
Greece demanded that Turkey re-open the Halki Seminary on the Turkish
island of Halki. However, Arınç only stated that the government is
fully determined to tackle the issue. Syria emphasized that Turkey
should tighten its border security against terrorism and stop
supporting terrorist groups. When Japan, Montenegro and Sri Lanka drew
attention to child labor, Arınç claimed that children in Turkey work
in simple jobs, and he did not even make a statement regarding the
issue of child brides, which was voiced by many countries in the
session.
There were also inconsistent comments in the session. Egypt, the top
jailer of journalists after Turkey, criticized Turkey on Internet
censorship and free speech; Serbia, which is the most anti-LGBT
country in Europe, suggested that Turkey practice gender equality and
Pakistan warned Turkey about violence against women.
This embarrassing picture before the UN, where Arınç failed to answer
many questions, has made the front page of very few Turkish daily
newspapers.