| Paris, Geneva,
May 15, 2003
The United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) issued yesterday
its conclusions and recommendations to Turkey. FIDH stresses
the need for Turley to urgently and adequately implement these
recommendations towards the elimination of torture and cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatments.
In its alternative report submitted to the CAT at the beginning
of May, the FIDH put emphasis on the lack of implementation
in practice of the legal reforms recently adopted by Turkey
in the recent years in order to comply with CAT’s obligations
and EU standards (See Torture: Still a routine practice, http://www.fidh.org/communiq/2003/tr0105a).
In issuing its concluding observations and recommendations,
the CAT raised an important number of areas of major concern
for FIDH, including the use of torture by the police, particularly
during police custody; the impunity of public officials responsible
for such acts and the existence of a time of prescription for
acts of torture; the reliance on confessions as main element
of conviction; the alarming situation in prisons, especially
in F-Type prisons, the lack of training of medical personnel
and Turkey’s failure to execute judgments of the European
Court of Human Rights. Finally, ten days after the raid of the
Turkish security forces against the Human Rights Association
offices in Ankara, the CAT expressed its concern about the harassment
and persecution against human rights defenders in Turkey.
In addition, the FIDH insists on the necessity for Turkey to
modify the definition of torture and to make a real effort to
eradicate all acts of torture against women, those two essential
problems having not been raised by the CAT.
The FIDH calls upon the Turkish authorities to widely disseminate
the observations of the Committee through wide variety of information
structures, including Ministries concerned, Bar associations
and professional organisations, and invites Turkey to provide
the Committee with information on the action undertaken. FIDH
further call upon the OHCHR to closely monitor the follow up
to the concluding observations.
FIDH believes that the Human Rights Commission of the Turkish
Grand National Assembly (TBMM) should play a leading role, as
national institution, in the domestic implementation of concluding
observations of the CAT.
The FIDH urges the Turkish authorities to include and effective
and appropriate training on torture for public officials and
civil servants, Bar associations, forensic institutes, universities
within the framework of their action programme on Human Rights. |
