HRW: "Turkey's new domestic security bill is meant to show you the tree, hoping you’ll ignore the forest."

HRW: "Turkey's new domestic security bill is meant to show you the tree, and hope you’ll ignore the forest." HT: HRW. by Emma Sinclair-Webb. Published in: Hurriyet Daily News.

Is Turkey Just Copying the EU in Increasing Police Powers?

The Turkish government’s plans to widen police powers are facing growing criticism at home and abroad. The government claims the draft law would merely give Turkish police the same powers as their counterparts in EU countries. The reality is that the new powers would put Turkish citizens at greater risk of state abuse.

Human Rights Watch has multiple concerns about the bill. First, it would give the police new powers to use lethal force against demonstrators and to search and to detain people they suspect of posing a threat to public order, both without judicial oversight. Second, it would increase the criminal penalties for participating in violent or “propaganda” demonstrations, with the result that more protesters are likely to end up in pre-trial detention. Third it would grant new powers to provincial governors and deputy governors acting under government orders to direct security officials to make arrests, again bypassing the judiciary.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu disagrees with our concerns. “Show us just one article that violates EU standards; show just one clause that is against universal democratic standards,” he said on February 10, addressing his party group in Parliament. To justify the new powers, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has also argued that France, Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have similar laws.

So, do EU member states really have similar laws, and is it possible to make such a comparison between the elements in this bill and diverse examples from their jurisdictions?

Human Rights Watch has learned from a diplomat of a major EU member state that in November Turkey’s Interior Ministry did indeed scrutinize that country’s police powers and cherry-pick elements from its laws to rebut criticism from the EU.

However, selective comparison with discrete police powers in individual EU member states is intentionally deceptive: it is meant to show you the tree, and hope you’ll ignore the forest.

Since 2006, the European Court of Human Rights has issued about 45 rulings against Turkey (identified as the Ataman v. Turkey group of cases), finding violations of the right to assembly and impunity for torture and ill-treatment, and called on Turkey to take urgent steps to address a series of detailed concerns about policing and lack of accountability. The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers will meet in March to discuss Turkey’s progress is addressing these concerns.

Giving the police a swathe of new and unfettered powers is unlikely to persuade the Council of Europe that Turkey is serious about addressing the systemic failures identified in repeated European Court judgments.Read the full story here.

Emma Sinclair-Webb is the Istanbul-based senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch.