Preliminary Legal Report on Human Rights Violations in Cizre since December 2015.

PRELIMINARY REPORT BY JURISTS

BASED ON VISIT TO CİZRE

 This study has been prepared as a report to present an updated and general perspective for the public on the human rights violations that occurred in Cizre, Turkey beginning on December 14, 2015. Reporting and documentation activities were conducted based on statements by the victims/witnesses who live in Cizre. In this preliminary report, we have included only some groups (women, children) and references to a limited number of cases that exemplify the nature and specifics of the incidents.

 Subsequent to March 2, 2016, when entry to Cizre was permitted, lawyers of Libertarian Lawyers Association (ÖHD), Mesopotamia Lawyers Association (MHD), Asrın Law Firm (AHB), and the Foundation for Society and Legal Studies (TOHAV) entered Cizre to document human rights violations and legal processes.

A chronological segmentation of the curfews in Cizre, indicates that there were three periods of curfew up until the date of this report:

European Lawyers Delegation visits Diyarbakir

Press release

A delegation of European lawyers will visit Diyarbakir from 21st to 24th January 2016. The 13 participants come from Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Austria. Two European lawyers’ organisations are supporting this initiative, the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH) and the European Democratic Lawyers (EDL) and also the “Unione delle Camere Penali Italiane”

 

Statement of the IADL & ELDH on the assassination of Tahir Elçi

November 28, 2015

(PDF copies are available)

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), a non-governmental organization with consultative status to the Council on Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (ECOSOC), and the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy & World Human Rights (ELDH) are shocked and outraged by the brutal murder this morning of our colleague Tahir Elçi, president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association.

ELDH sends lawyer to Cizre following Diyarbakir Bar Association call for action

We welcome this action by ELDH European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, in response to a call from the Diyarbakir Bar Association regarding the urgent situation in Cizre, where a curfew has been in place since 4th September.

Italian-based lawyer Ms Barbara Spinelli, will go to Turkey support the democratic forces in Turkey by attending a peaceful march to Cizre. She will monitor the situation there in order to produce a report addressed to European institutions and civil society, as well as to the organs of United Nations, especially those competent for protection of women’s rights. She will arrive tonight. She has been working for months on the situation of women in Rojava where she led a fact finding mission in March this year. Her report has been presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Here are the statements:

Report from the latest hearing of the trial of Ocalan’s lawyers

Tony Fisher, member of the Law Society’s Human Rights Committee, has written a report after observing the most recent hearing in the case of Abdullah Ocalan’s lawyers, who were arrested in November 2011 following simultaneous police raids across several Turkish cities. The arrest of these 45 lawyers, all of them members of Ocalan’s legal team, formed part of the so-called ‘KCK operations’, in which over 8,000 people have been arrested for alleged membership to the Kurdistan Communities Union, the KCK. 

Read a statement from Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and all the lawyers who observed the trial

International legal conference condemns PKK ban

Shared from Delist the PKK:

An international conference which took place in Bonn, Germany last week has published a resolution advocating the end of the ban on the PKK, as well all its sister organisations and their activities. The conference, which brought together lawyers and legal experts from across Europe, also called for the release of Abdullah Ocalan from Imrali in order for him to be able to fulfil his role as lead negotiator for the PKK in the ongoing peace talks; immunity and protection from criminalisation for negotiators on all sides, and the abolishment of all terrorism lists in the EU, its members states and in Turkey.

Many of the participants of the conference, which was organised by MAF-DAD and Azadi Freiheit, have also been a part of ajoint ELDH appeal which has been collecting signatures from lawyers, barristers and legal professionals who support the abolishing the ban. This campaign is still open, and lawyers from across Europe are encouraged to sign on.

In addition, the conference strongly asserts that the Kurdish people have a right to self-determination, and have taken this right in the establishment of an autonomous region in Syria – Rojava.  It also calls on the EU to support the reconstruction of Kobane following a 6-month siege on the city by the so-called ‘Islamic State’.

All lawyers from the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (CHD) released

News about the releases brought to you by Anadolu News Blog:

 

LAWYERS OF CHD (ASSOCIATION OF PROGRESSIVE JURISTS) AND PEOPLE’S LAW BUREAU (HHB) ARE FREE!

Anadolu Newsblog

Exactly 14 months ago the Turkish state under the AKP government launched an attack against 22 progressive lawyers of CHD and HHB. 9 lawyers, among them the president of CHD Selcuk Kozagacli, were arrested, their other colleagues were charged out of prison.

The state doesn’t have anything against them, except of their professional work. This was proven at the first trial in December, where not the court judged the lawyers, but in contrary.

Like in roulette 4 lawyers were selected and set free during the first court session, while the other 5 remained in prison.

40 democratic lawyers from Europe and thousands of lawyers in Turkey supported their charged colleagues until the end. The matchless solidarity among professionals, but also the unbending and revolutionary attitude of the lawyers have apparently forced the state to release the lawyers as abrupt as they were arrested.

Council for the Prevention of Torture reports on visit to Imrali island

Following the publication of the EP’s resolution on the 2013 Turkey Progress Report, another European institution has put Turkey under the spotlight this week, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT). The CPT visited the island of Imrali in January 2013 and laid out their finding in a report, which is available to download here.

The CPT found that Abdullah Ocalan is being denied the same amount of open air time as the five other prisoners, and that he is not still allowed to have contact with them during his outdoor exercise despite earlier recommendations that this should be allowed. They add, “Out of a total of 168 hours per week, prisoners could stay outside their cells for up to 36 hours (22 for Abdullah Ocalan), but they were able to be in contact with other inmates for only 8 hours per week; in other words, they were being held in solitary confinement for 160 hours a week.”

The CPT goes on to say: “More generally, the CPT must stress once again that the regime applied to prisoners serving a sentence of aggravated life imprisonment suffers from a fundamental flaw and and should be revised not only at Imrali prison but in the prison system as a whole….as a matter of principle, the imposition of such a regime [of isolation] should not be the automatic consequence of the type of sentence imposed. The Committee wishes to stress that life-sentenced prisoners (as indeed all prisoners) are sent to prison as punishment and not to be punished within the prison.”

The report reveals the torturous levels of solitary confinement suffered by the prisoners, especially Ocalan. At one point in 2011, Ocalan was held in continuous cellular confinement for a total of 240 days as part of a disciplinary punishment, far exceeding the CPT’s owen recommendations to impose this kind of solitary on an inmate for just 14 days at a time. “Such a state of affairs is totally unacceptable”, the report concludes.

Haldane Society writes to Turkish Embassy ahead of Erbey trial

The Chair of Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers wrote to the Turkish Ambassador in London yesterday expressing concern over the continued imprisonment of lawyer and human rights campaigner Muharrem Erbey.

The letter was written in response to PEN International’s call to action for Erbey, whose trial is set to continue with a hearing on the 13 January. Find out more about the campaign here.

 

 

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers defends Turkish colleague

 

The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers has written an open letter to the President of Turkey expressing grave concern over charges against their colleague Ramazan Demir, a lawyer and member of the Istanbul Bar who is facing disciplinary charges for allegedly “offending the dignity of a public authority in the performance of its duties” while defending his client in court during the KCK trial of 44 journalists in Istanbul. 

To: President of Turkey, Mr. Abdullah Gül, Cumhurbaskanligi 06100 Ankara, Turkey; Email: cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr

27 November 2013

Letter of Concern regarding Av. Ramazan Demir/Istanbul Bar

 

Dear Mr. President,

On behalf of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers I am writing to express our serious concern about the charges against our colleague Advocate Ramazan Demir. We know Adv. Demir as a highly responsible lawyer and we are greatly concerned to hear of these attacks on his professional integrity.