ZNet | Europe
Against All Odds
Human Rights Activism in Turkey
by Khatchig Mouradian; April 05, 2006
`I refuse to buy my freedom of speech by paying money,’ said Eren Keskin,
the Head of the Istanbul Branch of the Human Rights Association of Turkey,
during a press conference in Istanbul on the 22nd of March. A few days
earlier, a Turkish court had sentenced her to 10 months’ imprisonment for
insulting the country’s military. The sentence was then converted to a fine
of 6000 New Turkish Liras, which Keskin is refusing to pay, however, saying
that she will go to prison instead. Moreover, she asserts: `I will continue
to express both verbally and in writing my thoughts, which are banned
unlawfully by the ruling powers, because we are not the ones who should
change; they are.’
`The case will be heard by the Court of Appeals. It will take several months
before it reaches a verdict. In the meantime campaigns in support of freedom
of speech in Turkey both at home and abroad will help a lot to influence the
general climate in Turkey for greater democracy,’ told me Ayse Gunaysu, an
activist in the organization headed by Keskin.
The court sentence against Keskin was based on the notorious Article 301 of
the Turkish Penal Code, which states that public denigration of Turkishness,
the Grand National Assembly (Turkey’s legislature) or the Government of the
Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the state, as well as the
military and security structures are punishable by imprisonment of between
six months and three years. In recent months, dozens of Turkish activists
and intellectuals, including the world-renowned author Orhan Pamuk, have
been charged under this article.
Keskin, who is also the founder of the Project for Legal Aid to Victims of
Rape and Sexual Assault Under Custody, had been accused of `insulting’ the
Turkish military big time in 2002, after giving a speech in Köln, Germany
about cases of sexual assault against women inmates by the state security
forces in Turkey. Keskin explains: `In my presentation under the topic
`Sexual Violence Perpetrated by the State,’ I shared with the audience
certain findings of our project, which had been going since 1997. I said
that sexual torture was used as a systematic method of psychological warfare
and that victims of such torture were afraid to file complaints against the
security forces.’
I discussed with Eren Keskin issues related to human rights violations in
Turkey in late March, a few days after the recent court ruling. Taking into
account the oft-repeated assertions that Turkey had made great strides
towards respect for human rights in the last few years in its quest for EU
membership, I asked her whether these changes were radical or cosmetic. `I
don’t believe that the changes that have been made or are being made in this
process are radical,’ she replied. `I don’t think that the state has any
intention to change, because the changes introduced have no power to
transform the essence of the system. Yet we have to admit that they have at
least provided an atmosphere where certain issues are being discussed.’
Thou Shalt not Insult the Army
The generals in Turkey consider themselves the guardians of the country’s
secular constitution and they have an established tradition of directly
intervening in politics, including a number of direct and indirect military
coups since 1960. In Keskin’s opinion, all legislative, executive and
judicial powers in Turkey are still under their control. `The military in
Turkey not only determines both domestic and foreign policy, but also enjoys
huge economic power through one of Turkey’s biggest business groups, OYAK,
which operates literally in all sectors of the economy, from banking to
tourism. Moreover, all OYAK companies are exempt from any tax liability,’
explained Keskin. Hence, she believes that the main impediment to improving
Turkey’s human rights record is the military.
`Today, even those who define themselves as being part of the left in Turkey
do not question the taboos determined by the `red lines,’ which the military
has set,’ she said, noting that overcoming the military’s domination of the
state is extremely difficult in Turkey.
`Domestic Enemies’
As this article is being written, thousands of protesters, mostly Kurds, are
clashing with the Turkish police in the southeast of the country. For
decades, Turkey has failed to find a decent solution to its Kurdish problem.
Ankara is reluctant to grant the most basic of cultural and political rights
to the millions of Kurds, who live mainly in the country’s southeast, where
the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, unleashed an armed struggle against
the Turkish state in the 1980s.
`Kurds are one of the `domestic enemies’ that this system, controlled by the
military, needs to create in order to sustain its domination,’ asserted
Keskin. `Failure in providing any solution to this issue makes the military
all the more powerful. Even the minor progress made lately in this field –
achieved at enormous cost and partly the outcome of the EU accession process
– does not change the fact that `the policy of `non-solution’ still
dominates the government’s approach to the Kurdish issue.’
State of Denial
For decades, the greatest of all taboos in Turkey has been the Armenian
genocide of 1915. In recent years, a number of intellectuals in the country
have started to speak up about this issue, calling upon Turkey to face its
past, oftentimes at the cost of being persecuted or sued under Article 301.
`The Turkish official thesis regarding the Armenian genocide is still very
influential in the street and in academia, although there are efforts to
overcome this domination,’ said Keskin, when asked about Ankara’s policy of
denial towards the annihilation by the ruling Committee of Union and
Progress (CUP) and under the cover of World War I of an estimated a million
and a half Armenians in the dying years of the Ottoman Empire.
The overwhelming majority of genocide scholars and many parliaments around
the world recognize this instance of mass slaughter as a classic case of
genocide. The descendents of the genocide victims, in turn, continue to
demand that Turkey, too, recognize the genocidal intent behind the
decimation of the Armenians, who lived on their ancestral land. The Turkish
government vehemently denies, however, that there was a planned destruction
of an entire ethnic group. It also argues that the number of victims is
vastly exaggerated.
According to Keskin, `there is no real break with the ideology of the CUP
not only among the extremists but also among those who consider themselves
part of the democratic opposition in Turkey. The ideology that led to the
Armenian genocide was a very important element of the founding ideology of
the Republic of Turkey.’
Keskin has little faith that Turkey will come to terms with its past in the
near future. `The general mindset of the majority of Turkish society,
including a significant part of the left, has been shaped under the
influence of this ideology. It is for this reason that I don’t believe much
progress can be made in the short run,’ she said. `However, I believe
recognition of the genocide is crucial. Turkish people should acknowledge
the sufferings of the Armenians, empathize with them and apologize for what
happened in 1915.’
* * *
Eren Keskin and many of her colleagues in Turkey operate in an environment
of intimidation and threats. `We, the human rights activists, have learned,
throughout these years, how to live with fear and to go on despite its
persistence,’ she said. `Up till now 14 executives and members of our Human
Rights Association have been killed by what we call the counter-guerilla
units. I myself have been the target of two armed attacks. I still receive
death threats. Of course all these generate some fear in me, but if there is
one thing, which we have learned by now, is to continue with our struggle
despite fear. I guess we owe this to our faith in what we do.’
Indeed, it is on this faith that many people are counting.
Khatchig Mouradian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer and journalist.