The UN Human Rights office, has said that routine extensions of the state of emergency in Turkey have led to human rights violations against hundreds of thousands of people.
The UN office, in a report, which covers the period between Jan. 1 to Dec. 2017, warned that the state of emergency has facilitated the deterioration of human rights and may “have long-lasting implications on the institutional and socio-economic fabric of Turkey.”
The UN Human Rights Office said that it recognises the complex challenges Turkey has faced in addressing the July 15, 2016 attempted coup and a number of terrorist attacks.
The report however said that “the sheer number, frequency and lack of connection of several [emergency] decrees to any national threat seem to point to the use of emergency powers to stifle any form of criticism.
“The numbers are just staggering: nearly 160,000 people arrested during an 18-month state of emergency; 152,000 civil servants dismissed, many totally arbitrarily; teachers, judges and lawyers dismissed or prosecuted; journalists arrested.
“Media outlets shut down and websites blocked – clearly the successive states of emergency declared in Turkey have been used to severely and arbitrarily curtail the human rights of a very large number of people,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Al-Hussein said.
The report cited the April 2017 referendum that extended the President’s executive powers into both the legislature and the judiciary as seriously problematic, resulting in interference with the work of the judiciary and parliament.
The UN recalled that 22 emergency decrees were promulgated by the end of 2017 (and two more since the cut-off date of the report), with many regulating matters unrelated to the state of emergency.
“Since the stated purpose of the emergency regime was to restore the normal functioning of the democratic institutions, it is unclear how measures such as the eviction of families of civil servants from publicly-owned housing may contribute to this goal,” the report states.
The report also states that about 300 journalists have been arrested on the grounds that their publications contained “apologist sentiments regarding terrorism” or other “verbal act offences” or for “membership” in terrorist organisations.
NAN
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/03/26/crime/nigerian-court-remands-63-year-old-man-3-others-in-prison-for-allegedly-raping-10-year-old/
