2019 Report by Human Rights Association: 440 violations of right to life in 2019

img

ANKARA - İHD Co-Chair Öztürk Türkdoğan announced that there had been 440 violations of right to life, 447 torture and ill-treatment cases in 2019. Türkdoğan defined the year in question as "a year when the regime became increasingly authoritarian and the official ideology tried to be fully implemented".

 
The Human Rights Association (İHD) released its 2019 Report on Human Rights Violations in Turkey today (May 5).
 
"The regime has got more and more authoritarian in Turkey in the last five years," the İHD has commented and added that "it was a period when the official ideology was attempted to be put into full force."
 
According to the data compiled and shared by the İHD Documentation Unit, the number of people who alleged that they were subjected to torture or maltreatment in and outside detention was 1,477 in 2019.
 
Moreover, law enforcement officers intervened against 1,344 meetings and demonstrations last year and 3,935 people claimed that they were subjected to beating and ill treatment during these interventions.
 
Featuring the subheading "The Resistance of Social Opposition Against the Insistence on Authoritarian Rule," the 23-page report of the İHD has grouped the violations of rights in following categories:
 
Perpetuated State of Emergency, right to life, torture and ill treatment, prisons, Kurdish question, right to personal liberty and freedom of expression, freedom of organization and pressures on human rights organizations and defenders, freedom of assembly and demonstration, violations of right to vote and to be elected, problem of violence against women, refugees / asylum seekers / immigrants, economic and social rights.
 
"The 2019 report on rights violations shows that the struggle for human rights and democracy will increasingly continue," the İHD has noted in the conclusion to its report and shared the following observations:
 
"Declared on July 21, 2016, the State of Emergency regime was ended on July 19, 2018. However, with the law no. 7145 dated July 31, 2018, the State of Emergency was, in a sense, extended for 3 years. Hence, 2019 was also a year when the State of Emergency order was still in effect.
 
"Despite the deadlock of the Kurdish question and the ongoing armed conflicts, the Co-Mayors of Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır, Van and Mardin Metropolitan Municipalities were removed from office and governors were appointed as trustees in their place on August 19 after the local elections on March 31, 2019, which has emerged as the most typical characteristic of an authoritarian regime that has caused the will of the people and, thus, the elections, to be declared null and void.
 
"The policy of appointing trustees continued in 2019 and 2020 in such a way to include not only the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), but the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) as well.
 
"The stance assumed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the gravity of Turkey's problems of democracy and human rights was a case in point. The necessary could not be done even for the verdicts of violation given for Selahattin Demirtaş and Osman Kavala.
 
"Drifting away from the principle of rule of law, the ECtHR constantly pointed at the Constitutional Court in order to prevent new applications, which has manifested the decay in the protection of human rights values."
 
The report has also documented the extrajudicial killings of law enforcement officers in 2019. According to the report, nine people lost their lives and 16 people were wounded in random fires opened by the officers or on the ground that they did not abide by their stop warnings.
 
The report has also shared the following figures:
 
"440 people in total, including 98 security officers (soldiers, police, village guards), 324 militants and 18 civilians, lost their lives as a result of armed conflicts. 233 people in total, including 206 security officers (soldiers, police, village guards), 1 armed militant and 26 civilians, were also wounded.
 
"3 people, including one child, lost their lives and 2 children got wounded after being hit by armed vehicles of security forces.
 
"3 people, including 2 children, lost their lives and 5 people, including 2 children, were wounded in explosion of mines, unclaimed bombs, etc.
 
"At least 69 people lost their lives and 4 people got wounded in prisons for a series of reasons such as illness, suicide, violence, etc.
 
"At least 17 people suspiciously lost their lives and 5 people got wounded while they were on their mandatory military service or active duty."
 
The report has also shared the following information as to prisons:
 
"According to the data of the Ministry of Justice, there were 59,429 prisoners in prisons of Turkey on December 31, 2002, when the AKP came to power.
 
"According to the statement made by the Ministry of Justice during the Parliamentary debates on 2020 budget in December 2019, there were 294 thousand arrestees and convicts in 355 penal institutions. It was indicated that around 11 thousand of these arrestees and convicts were women. No exact figures on arrestees and convicts were shared.
 
"While there are 3,100 convicted and arrested children, 780 children are behind bars with their mothers.
 
"According to the latest statement made by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on December 5, 2019, the number of people in penal institutions increased by 14 percent and reached 264,842 as of December 31, 2018."

View More Articles

10/07/2020
17:32 Sent to prison with her 10-month-old baby
17:11 Hunger strike to Didem Akman who has been on death fast
16:51 Lawyers not allowed in Kuğulu Park
16:50 Restriction to detainees to access lawyers
16:49 İmralı isolation is on the agenda of the parliament
16:49 Bar heads continued their vigil on benches
14:40 Raids and detentions in Adana and Mersin
09/07/2020
18:19 Police blockade on bar heads continue, lawyers are not allowed to join them
17:55 Hrant Dink trial posponed: Rejection to summon the intelliengence to the court
16:59 Demand for justice for the Kurdish journalist Aziz Oruç
16:30 Bar heads under police blockade in Ankara
16:30 HDP announces the schedule of "Democracy Meetings"
12:36 Bar heads invite the lawyers to Ankara: We will be on duty
12:35 Lawyers file application to Prosecutor's Office to visit Öcalan
11:11 Kurdish politicians: All steps towards the national unity
11:10 Turkish Parliament passes the two articles of the much debated 'multiple bars' bill
08/07/2020
19:57 Online meeting for the freedom of Öcalan
19:34 Witnesses take the stand in Hrant Dink trial
18:22 Protest in Ankara Courthouse for lawyers on death fast
17:24 Controversial 'mass grave' trial referred to Constitutional Court
12:30 The door of the HDP member marked by 'Turkish flag'
12:30 Mortal shell and mine ready to explode found in Diyarbakır
07/07/2020
19:05 Journalist Demir's trial postponed
18:52 Buried in the same grave: Father died in massacre, son died in airstrike
18:29 Çetin arrested: My political activities have been legal and public
16:21 Rojbin Çetin sent to court for arrest
06/07/2020
19:22 Application for Demirtaş’s release denied
18:35 Batman Municipality Co-Mayor and councilors detained
14:59 Bar heads back to their provinces: Everything is just beginning
14:58 Second phase in HDP's struggle program: Democracy Meetings
12:10 Death toll rises to 11 as migrant boat sinks in Lake Van
12:09 Prisons and COVID-19: Ill prisoners on the edge of 'death'
09:54 Multiple bar system proposal accepted at the Parliamentary Justice Commission
05/07/2020
17:05 Another flood in Başkale
16:54 The death of the child deemed as 'lawful'
15:13 'The end of the day in Libya for Turkey'
14:32 Slaughter of trees in Cudi Mountains
12:37 Urfa Bar Association Head: We will keep on struggle until the draft bill is withdrawn
12:02 Hot conflict in Dûpişk Hill
10:54 In quest of the bones of their father
10:14 DTK Co-Chair Öztürk: Targeting DTK is an attack on the future of the peoples of Turkey
09:35 Comission passes 12 articles of the much debated bill to split bars
03/07/2020
19:24 Death toll in the fireworks factory explosion raised to 4
19:03 4 human rights activists convicted of terror charges
18:46 Kurdish woman politicans Kışanak and Tuncel not released
17:27 Massive protest from the lawyers: We shall never surrender
15:52 Bar heads march to the Parliament
15:51 Journalists detained and fined for social distancing
15:51 5 more prisoners join the hunger strike
12:49 Tea and breakfast ban for the bar heads