ࡱ> 13./05@ bjbj22 XX0vQvQvQ8QLQRRR(RRRAUAUAUMOOOOOO$RZsT^AUsffRR jflRRMM,ٖRR ;VvQ*T"0R8R(ٖffffٖ AU%h~ u oQ AUAUAUssdJvQf"vQ State Violence against Women in Turkey And attacks on human rights defenders of victims of sexual violence in custody December 2001 State Violence against Women in Turkey and Attacks on Human Rights Defenders of Victims of Sexual Violence in Custody ______________________________________________________ A Kurdish Human Rights Project Trial Observation Report December 2001 In June 2001, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) sent two mission members to observe to observe the trial of five women prosecuted in the State Security Court of Istanbul. The charges related to speeches made at a conference on sexual violence in custody held in Istanbul in June 2000, in which women spoke in public for the first time about the phenomenon of sexual harassment, rape and torture in custody at the hands of Turkish officials. This report describes the background and conduct of the trial, and the results of meetings held with various human rights organisations and womens groups in Turkey. The members of the trial observation delegation were: Margaret Owen, a barrister with long experience in the field of international womens issues, including positions held with UN agencies and the UK government, who has done extensive work on law, gender, health and development; and Tina Devadasan, Projects Officer of KHRP since 1997, who is a barrister and has special interest in womens issues. This report was written by Margaret Owen with assistance from Tina Devadasan, and was edited by KHRP. Some of the views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of KHRP. The delegation would like to warmly thank all those who assisted us in the mission, especially Bilgin Ayata, Eren Keskin, Fatma Karakas and all those who gave their time so generously to meet us. ISBN: 1900175 41 X All rights reserved CONTENTS Foreword 1 Introduction 3 I. Background Political, Legal and Social 5 Rape, sexual harassment, and virginity testing 6 The June 2000 Congress 9 II. The Trial The Judiciary 10 Public Prosecutor 10 Defendants 10 Defense counsel 10 Offences in indictment 10 Date of offence 12 The Hearing 12 The Judge and Chief Public Prosecutor 15 III. The Case in Context 18 IV. Applicable Human Rights Standards 25 V. Conclusions 28 VI. Recommendations 30 Annexes: Extracts from relevant Turkish legislation Charge sheets Statistics from the Legal Aid Project for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces (Istanbul) published by the Womens Legal Office Against Sexual Torture (Berlin) FOREWORD On 10 and 11 June 2000, a congress was organised by several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Turkey to address the systematic sexual violence perpetrated by State officials against women in custody. This congress, entitled Against Sexual Violence in Custody, focused on the information gathered by the Legal Aid Project for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces in their report documenting the stories of victims. Participants in the congress, including NGO representatives and lawyers working against sexual violence, and the victims themselves, gave testimony and spoke about their experiences. This resulted in two State investigations against 19 of the speakers. As a result of the first investigation, proceedings were initiated against all 19 participants before the Criminal Court in Istanbul under Article 159 of the Turkish Penal Code. The second investigation culminated in charges being brought against five women speakers including Fatma Karakas, one of the lawyers and founders of the Legal Aid Project, and Kamile Cigci, victim of a brutal rape, along with Fatma Kara, Nahide Kilici and Zeynep Ovayolu who were amongst the organisers of the congress, before the State Security Court in Istanbul. The indictment in the case against the five states that: Karakas has said in her speech that women experience sexual assault and rape during custody; that especially in the Kurdish regions, Kurdish women experience rape; and that during village raids, sexual assault and rape have had occurred. What the five defendants had in common in their speech, it would seem, was the use of terms such as Kurdish women and Kurdish regions. These women are alleged, therefore, to have expressed propaganda against the States indivisibility and to have openly incited people to enmity and hatred by pointing to class, racial, religious, confessional or regional differences. These are serious offences under Turkish law and the defendants face the prospect of up to a maximum of six years imprisonment. If convicted, there is every possibility that Fatma Karakas could lose her licence to practise the law. In June 2001, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) sent two mission members to observe to observe the trial of these women at the State Security Court in Istanbul. This report documents their crucial findings and offers a detailed list of urgent recommendations to the Turkish government. Despite being party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of association, and having adopted the UN General Assembly Declaration on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, the Turkish State continues to restrict and punish the expression of views with which it disagrees. The 1982 Constitution goes so far as to state No protection shall be given to thoughts and opinions that run counter to Turkish national interests giving the State an extremely wide scope to restrict and punish the expression of views which runs counter to its own, especially in instances when it is perceived the Kurdish issue is raised. Perhaps the most urgent question that comes out of this report is the question, why were these proceedings brought at all? As defence lawyer Eren Keskin put to the State Security Court, my clients were not relating a story or expressing an opinion.they were merely giving a factual account of their experiences That speaking out about sexual violence and rape in custody should actually bring indictments against the victims of this abuse speaks volumes about the distance that the Turkish State has to go before it can truly bring itself into line with the international standards regarding not only womens rights but also freedom of expression and association. Kerim Yildiz Executive Director Kurdish Human Rights Project London December 2001 INTRODUCTION The Beijing Platform for Action singles out violence against women as a major obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace. Acts or threats of gender-related violence, wherever they occur, - in the home or in the community, or perpetrated or condoned by the State - do irrevocable physical, sexual and psychological harm to women and girls. When rape and sexual harassment of women and girls at the hands of State agents, such as Village Guards, police, the military and prison staff, is expressly or implicitly condoned by the State and justified as a means of fighting terrorism, the State is guilty by commission and by omission, of breaching international human rights law. They are guilty of one of the most abhorrent crimes of humanity, the destruction of the sexual identity of a woman, of her dignity, honour, self-respect, and indeed her life, in addition to the resultant terrible physical and emotional damage. Turkey is now anxious to demonstrate that it has put right its abysmal human rights record as it applies for membership of the European Union. As this report shows, it has a long way to go before its human rights record has improved sufficiently to meet the criteria for membership and its candidacy can be approved. Torture of women in village police stations, municipal police stations and in prison is endemic. While much has been written about the brutal torture of Kurdish men and extra judicial killings, there is much less awareness of the horrific State-condoned treatment of Kurdish women, girls and children. Sexual abuse and rape of innocent women and girls has been systematically used in Turkey, both to obtain confessions and information and to humiliate, destroy and destabilise one of the centres of Kurdish culture the family. We applaud the courage, tenacity and commitment of the Project Legal Aid for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces which published its horrendous report on rape in detention in December 1999. In three years, 113 women approached the project with their stories. All were sexually assaulted or raped during custody at police stations, gendarmeries or during village raids. The perpetrators were either policemen, soldiers, or Village Guards. The women were brave to reveal the intimate terrible details of what had been done to them. Despite the dangers of speaking out, they broke the silence and we can read their testimonies. Now it is for us, in the international community and in the European Union to build on these womens bravery and exert all the pressure we can to ensure that these brutalities cease. What is clear from this report is that sexual violence against Kurdish women is perpetrated by the Turkish State and that, despite its commitments under international conventions and treaties, those who speak up for these women, whether activists, journalists or lawyers do so at great risk to themselves, for the State will make every effort to silence them. The present legal system also gives cause for considerable concern. The independence of the judiciary is questionable and the organisation and process operating in the State Security Courts are not compatible with the criteria for delivering justice fairly and speedily. Turkey has ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the UN Convention against Torture, and participated in the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the Beijing Platform and its follow-up Outcome Document, Women 2000. But in Turkey, every day womens rights are violated in some aspect of their lives. For example, the perpetrators of so-called honour crimes are rarely prosecuted, convicted or appropriately punished; rape is too narrowly defined; forced virginity testing occurs in prisons, colleges and schools; and women lawyers representing women raped in custody are not only not believed but find themselves accused of insulting the State and risk prosecution and imprisonment. A better understanding of the victimisation of Kurdish women and the lack of protection afforded them by the Turkish justice system may also assist immigration authorities in host countries to accept their accounts of persecution as truthful and admit their applications for asylum. The tragic murder of a 22-year old Kurdish asylum seeker in Glasgow in August 2001 highlights not only the immense problems Kurdish men and women encounter when they seek refuge in other countries, but also the degree of ignorance and lack of awareness possessed by ordinary Europeans about the specific reasons that cause people to flee their homes, undertake costly, difficult and often dangerous journeys and attempt to rebuild their lives somewhere else. Perhaps if those who are so quick to demonise refugees could be better informed about human rights abuses elsewhere, the milk of human kindness and compassion would moderate the resentment and violence that has erupted in the UK this year. It is good that Turkeys Supreme Court permits the attendance of international human rights observers to the trials in the State Security Courts, and we are grateful for this. But our presence there and this report will only be of value if it helps to bring about a fundamental change not just of the legal infrastructure and the police and prison systems, but of attitudes to and treatment not only of Kurdish women, but of all women in Turkey. Margaret Owen London December 2001 I. BACKGROUND Political, Legal and Social According to Article 2 of its Constitution, Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state, governed by the rule of lawand loyal to the nationalism of Ataturk. World War I saw the final disintegration of the old Ottoman Empire and its subsequent dismemberment by the victorious Allied Powers. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (later Atatrk), however, the Turks refused to accept the Treaty of Svres which the Allies attempted to impose on them, expelled the Greeks and Armenians from Anatolia and negotiated the withdrawal of the Allied (British and French) forces from Istanbul. The new situation was recognised by the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, which confirmed Turkey in virtually all its present borders and sanctioned a massive exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece. The Lausanne Treaty declared that officially, all inhabitants of Turkey are Turks, and the only recognised minority groups are Greeks, Armenians and Jews. This treaty sets the policies that underscore the refusal to acknowledge the Kurds as a separate ethnic group, or the Kurdish region as a separate identifiable region. Thus the mere mention of the words Kurdish women and Kurdish region are considered as propaganda for so-called terrorist organisations, and promoting separatism, which is an indictable offence under State Security Law and the Penal Code. Political parties and media that have attempted to campaign for Kurdish rights have been closed down by the State and their members prosecuted. Lawyers who refer to their Kurdish clients as Kurdish or to events as occurring in Kurdish regions risk arrest and prosecution. According to the Istanbul Bar, and confirmed by the Chief Public Prosecutor, lawyers who represent Kurdish political prisoners and clients, or Kurdish organisations, are routinely described as terrorist lawyers and are in many cases prohibited from access to clients held in custody. In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) began the guerrilla insurgency against the Turkish State in Southeast Turkey. In the course of the conflict, more than 3,000 villages have been destroyed, burnt and bombed, some 30,000 people have been killed, and as many as 3 million people displaced from their homes, many forced to find refuge in the cities or seek asylum, often as illegal immigrants, in other countries. The situation further intensified with the kidnapping of Abdullah Ocalan from Kenya in February 1999. His trial, conviction and death sentence were followed by the suspension of the death sentence after intervention by the European Court, pending the Courts decision in Ocalans application that claims that Turkeys treatment violated the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1999, a unilateral PKK ceasefire has been in force. With the imposition of a State of Emergency in the southeastern region in 1987 and the establishment of State Security Courts, the clamp down on any political activity, non-violent meetings and protests, and dissemination, through the media, of the plight of Kurdish people intensified. The State Security Courts operate in eight separate areas and the main purpose of the courts is to deal with cases that involve crimes against the national security of the country. Each Chief Prosecutor is responsible for the supervision of the other prosecutors within his department. The prosecutor retains jurisdiction over the investigation of the case even when it has been started by the security forces. What is of concern is that the rules of procedure for the State Security Courts are very different to those in operation in the ordinary criminal courts. For example, suspects can be detained in custody for longer periods and the rules regarding contempt of court are stricter. In addition, the prosecutor can go beyond the remit of his courts jurisdiction and make further investigations. Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, military judges have now been removed and the period that people can be kept in custody without access to a lawyer in the Southeast has been reduced from 30 to 10 days. But this is still far longer than allowed by the ordinary courts, and in the context of the endemic practice of torture in Turkey, the attitudes of State agents in police stations and prisons, and the governments commitment to eradicate terrorism, such long detentions are to be deplored. Women, in particular, are especially vulnerable. The torture tends to be sexual, and the long detentions incommunicado, without access to lawyers or doctors, prevent the essential evidence of such abuse being documented. The Turkish Penal Code and Article 9 of the State Security Law criminalise any mention of the Kurdish community, or of Kurdish regions. Turkeys laws that criminalise any allegation that government agents have used torture, rape and sexual harassment are employed to silence women lawyers, journalists, doctors and victims of abuse by police and military forces. Very rarely are Village Guards, police, military and prison staff prosecuted, even in the rare cases that the evidence of sexual torture is accepted. Only a very negligible number of officers have ever been convicted. According to official statistics, investigations of 577 security officers accused of torture between 1995 and 1999, only 10 convictions (1.7%) resulted. If there is a conviction, State agents receive the lightest possible sentences. Rape, Sexual Harassment and Virginity Testing The delegation was informed that rape and other forms of sexual violence are used as a form of torture against women in Turkey. An issue that was drawn to the attention of the delegation is that rape is very narrowly defined in the Turkish criminal law. As defined in the Penal Code, it covers only acts of penile penetration of the vagina. Thus penetration with other instruments, such as fingers, truncheons, bottles and electric shocks is not defined as rape but as sexual assault or harassment, and carries a far lesser sentence. Sexual torture is inevitably most difficult to prove, however defined. Kurdish women have given horrific descriptions of how they are treated in custody, to include strip and intimate searching by men, threats of rape, touching of intimate body parts, electric shocks, and humiliating and degrading forced sexual activities, with, for example, family members, including young children. Proof of rape depends on corroborative reports from physical examination, since there are rarely any witnesses prepared to testify. Physical examination of a rape victim needs to be undertaken within a short period after the alleged assault, since after that period lesions will no longer be identifiable, nor will sperm have survived longer than this period. The fact that the penalties for rape of a virgin are more severe than the penalties for rape of a non-virgin has resulted in young Kurdish women being forced to submit to virginity tests on being taken into custody. Such forced intimate physical examinations, apparently in the presence of male police and prison staff, represent a grievous bodily assault and an infringement of privacy and a grave abuse of womens dignity and human rights. Virginity testing is widespread in Turkey. The delegation was told of a headmaster who ordered such examinations for all the older girls in his school to protect young girls from underage sex and prostitution.) Women who allege rape and sexual harassment in custody are likely to meet major difficulties in meeting the standard of proof required. Medical examinations establishing rape must be undertaken within seven days where the victim is a virgin, since a ruptured hymen will heal within this period, or within forty-eight hours for other women. But where women are in custody they are unable to obtain medical examinations within this time scale. Many raped women are reluctant, in any case, to speak out about their experiences because of the shame and stigma they would suffer, and possible ostracisation and even violence (honour killings) from family members. Thus this horrific crime against women is often hidden from the public eye and shrouded in secrecy and silence. Only now, and since the June 2000 Congress, are brave women beginning to come forward with their testimonies, often concerning events that happened several years ago. Sexual torture in custody used to be totally denied by the Turkish authorities. Recently, there has been partial admission that, in some isolated cases, these violations occurred, but the authorities deny that sexual torture has been systematic. The fact that more than 131 women have come forward with their statements, and more women continue to speak out every day reveals how systematic such torture has been. The lack of clear evidence of actual or threatened sexual harassment and rape perpetrated by agents of the State imposes almost insurmountable problems for Kurdish women who have fled Turkey and apply for asylum. In the UK, for example, lawyers representing Kurdish women asylum seekers say that their inability to provide medical evidence that sexual abuse had been used as a method of torture, or corroboration of their accounts, results in the rejection by the UK government of many bona fide applications under the Refugee Convention. The European Commission and Court of Human Rights, in the case of Aydin v. Turkey, criticised Turkey for failure to evaluate psychological evidence during the investigation into the applicants allegations of rape. Among other serious failings in the investigation, due weight was not given to psychological reports providing evidence of trauma (post-traumatic stress disorder) following sexual harassment and rape, but the Turkish courts have, in recent cases, refused to admit reports other than those provided by the State institution. For instance, there have been difficulties in getting reports from the (independent) University Hospitals Departments of Forensic Medicine and Psychology accepted. It is often most difficult to obtain the evidence to satisfy the standards of proof in criminal cases. In the rare event that a woman is able to obtain a medical examination within the brief time period available to document a ruptured hymen, it is carried out by the State Council of Forensic Medicine that is affiliated to the Ministry of Justice; this faculty cannot be said to be unbiased or impartial. Defence lawyers cited the horrific case of a tortured 3-year old child forced to sexually abuse his mother in 1997 and who was then subjected to cigarette burns and electric shocks. While the independent Psycho Social Trauma Centre of the University Medical faculty and the Turkish Medical Association found that the burn scars originated at a date when the child was in custody with his mother and that he was suffering from trauma symptoms consistent with the mothers testimony, the Public Prosecutor refused to bring charges on the basis that the evidence was unreliable, and the Council of State maintained that it was impossible to state with certainty when the injuries were inflicted. The complaint against the torturers was dismissed. The June 2000 Congress On 10-11 June 2000, a congress was held in Istanbul, organised by the Project Legal Aid for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces. The objective of the congress was to highlight the problem of sexual violence against women in custody, and on the last day a press conference was held entitled Against Sexual Violence in Custody. In all, 19 conference organisers and speakers have been charged with various offences including insulting and raising suspicion about Turkish security forces. Of these, 14 women were charged in the criminal courts under Article 159 of the Turkish Penal Code (denigration of the State military and security forces). These proceedings are still ongoing, and the next hearing is set for 5 February 2002. The remaining 5 were charged before the State Security Court in a case that the KHRP delegation went to Turkey to observe. The hearing attended by the delegation was just one of the hearings in one of the cases that is on-going. The inspiration for organising the congress came from the courage of the Kurdish woman journalist Asiye Zeybek Guzel who was raped in prison (where she remains today) and wrote the book Iskencede bir tecavs oyks (A Story of Rape under Torture) about her experiences in custody. This brave testimony encouraged other violated women to share their traumatic experiences and collectively campaign for justice. The Assembly had legal authorisation for the event. One thousand women attended. Initially, during the planning process, only seven women were named to give their testimonies, but, at the actual meeting, over seventy women spoke openly of their experiences of sexual harassment, rape, and physical and mental torture at the hands of State officials, ranging from police officers, to the Anti-Terror Unit and the security forces. For instance, the case of one 19-year old woman, Fatma Deniz Polatta_ who had allegedly been raped by police whilst in detention at Iskenderun Police Headquarters in March 1999 and forced to confess to supporting the PKK was presented at the Congress. This forced confession, under torture, was later used to convict her in November 1999 and she was sentenced to a long prison term. She was still in prison at the time the congress was held, but her family spoke at the congress of the rape and torture on her behalf and so implicated her in the indictments. In addition, many presentations referred to rape and sexual violence inflicted by State forces in other countries such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Rwanda. The Congress, held in a country in which sexual violence against women is frequently ignored, covered up or deemed taboo for public debate, was hailed as a milestone by Turkeys womens rights advocates. II. THE TRIAL: Thursday, 28 June 2001 State Security Court (DGM), Istanbul The Judiciary: President: Kksal ^engn. Members: Kemal Can, Idris Karauha. Public Prosecutor: Sinan Ali Yasar Defendants: Attorney Fatma Karakas (one of the lawyers of the Project  Legal Aid for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces ) Nahide Kilic (publisher) Zeynep Ovayolu (administrator, Human Rights Association) Fatma Kara (member of organising committee of the Assembly against Sexual Violence in Custody) Kamile Cigci (rape victim) Of the accused, only Nahide Kilic, Zeynep Ovayolu and Fatma Kara were present in court. Of the remaining two, the lawyer Fatma Karakas was not present as she was acting as defence counsel for another client, facing a similar charge, in Beyoglu Criminal Court. Kamile Cigci was before the criminal court in her hometown of Mardin in southeastern Turkey as the complainant in a criminal case concerning her own brutal rape whilst in custody. Defence Counsel: Eren Keskin, Gulizar Tuncer and Gulseren Yoleri represented respectively the three defendants attending. Offences in indictment:  Disseminating separatist propaganda, inciting the people to enmity and vengeance by taking into account differences of class and region. Defendants charged under Article 312(2) of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 8(1) of the Anti-Terror Law. Turkish Penal Code, Article 312: A person who expressly praises or condemns an act punishable by law as an offence or incites the population to break the law shall, on conviction, be liable to between six months and two years imprisonment and a heavy fine ... A person who incites the people to hatred or hostility on the basis of a distinction between social classes, races, religions, denominations or regions, shall, on conviction, be liable to between one and three years imprisonment and a fine of ... If this incitement endangers public safety, the sentence shall be increased by one third to one half. Prevention of Terrorism Law, Article 8: Written and spoken propaganda, meetings, assemblies and demonstrations aimed at undermining the territorial integrity of the Republic of Turkey or the indivisible unity of the nation are prohibited. Any person who engages in such an activity shall be sentenced to not less than one and not more than three years imprisonment and a fine of from one hundred million to three hundred million Turkish liras. The penalty imposed on a re-offender may not be commuted to a fine. Where the crime of propaganda contemplated in the first paragraph is committed through the medium of periodicals within the meaning of section 3 of the Press Act (Law no. 5680), the publisher shall also be liable to a final equal to ninety per cent of the income from the average sales for the previous month if the periodical appears more frequently than monthly. However, the fine may not be less than one hundred million Turkish liras. The editor of the periodical concerned shall be ordered to pay a sum equal to half the fine imposed on the publisher and sentenced to not less than six months and not more than two years imprisonment. Where the crime of propaganda contemplated in the first paragraph is committed through the medium of printed matter or by means of mass communication other than periodicals within the meaning of the second paragraph, those responsible and the owners of the means of mass communication shall be sentenced to not less than six months and not more than two years imprisonment and a fine of from one hundred million to three hundred million Turkish liras. The indictment was made in respect of the defendants speeches at the press conference for the congress they had organised Against Sexual Violence in Custody held in Istanbul on 10-11 June 2000. All the defendants are members of the Organising Committee of the Project Legal Aid for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces which organised the congress in June 2000 and set up the press conference. In all, nineteen conference organisers and speakers have been charged with insulting and raising suspicion about Turkish security forces. This was just one of the hearings in one of the cases that is ongoing. Date of offence: 10-11 June 2000 The Hearing: Thursday, 28 June 2001 at 9.45.a.m. Features of the Courtroom The courtroom is small with very little seating for members of the public. It is windowless, stuffy, cramped and claustrophobic. A significant distinctive feature of this State Security Court is the physical position of the Public Prosecutor. He sits up on a raised platform, some 3 to 5 feet above the rest of the court, and alongside the President and the other two judges. All four men wore similar robes so that it was impossible to identify who were the judges and who the Prosecutor. The counsel for the defendant women are seated below to the left, and the three defendants, on the same level, sit opposite the bench. To an independent observer, the immediate impression is that the Public Prosecutor works with the judges, and the defendants lawyers have a lesser unequal status associated with that of the defendants; the implication is that they have inferior standing to the Public Prosecutor. Opposite the defence team, to the left of the defendants, in the position perhaps more appropriately occupied by the prosecuting team in a criminal court, were gathered members of the Turkish media press, photographers and television. Such a court organisation, to an impartial observer, reflects features of the nature and status of the judiciary in Turkey and gave the delegation the impression that Judges here are not independent of the government. The general impression given is that they and the Public Prosecutors are employed by the State, working together and acting on behalf of the state. No women are on the bench, and the pervading atmosphere in the court appears to be sexist and political. The court usher walked round the courtroom ordering women to uncross their legs, since this position is regarded as a contempt of court. The delegation could understand little of what was said at the hearing, due to bad acoustics, and the difficulties the delegations interpreter had in listening and translating what was said. The hearing was short. The President requested the defendants to state their names and addresses, and then read out the charges against each of them. They, in turn, rebutted the charges, saying that they had expressed the realities of the situation for women in Turkey. These statements were then summarised by the President. The Defendants The first defendant, Nahide Kilic, stated that she did not accept the charges brought against her. She declared that the statements she made about sexual harassment and rape in custody at the assembly were already the subject of legal proceedings and were widely reported in the press. She affirmed that she was also being prosecuted in the Istanbul Criminal Court on these charges and that her intention, in her speech, was to lift the curtain of silence on these issues and reveal the truth. The Conference in question was a lawful one. Its purpose was to discuss the reality of torture and rape globally and in Turkey. We did not use the words Kurdish provinces and Kurdish women in our speeches, as claimed in the indictment, which alleges we committed separatism. We discussed rape and torture as directed at women in the eastern provinces. We definitely did not commit separatism. The second defendant, Zeynep Ovayolu, stated that she was the administrator of the Human Rights Association of Turkeys Gaziantep branch, and in that role had heard the testimonies of women victims of torture and sexual harassment in the eastern provinces. She was merely recounting these testimonies in her speech. She also pleaded not guilty to the charge of expressing separatist propaganda and added that the general public in Turkey was aware of these occurrences.  Defendants Nahide Kilic and Zeynep Ovayolu being interviewed by the press following the trial. The third defendant, Fatma Kara (a member of the organising committee of the Against Sexual Violence in Custody Congress), pleading not guilty, stated that, since the required legal permits for the congress had been obtained, the event was not illegal. As one of the main speakers, her intention had been to draw attention to the high incidence of rape, sexual harassment and gender-violence not just in Turkey, but in the world generally. However, since Kurdish women were predominantly singled out for this type of violence, she had drawn attention to this fact as well as speaking about the general oppression of Turkish women. She did not intend to express separatist propaganda. Defence Lawyers Defence lawyer Eren Keskin explained the absence of the other two defendants. Acting for Fatma Karakas, she explained that attorney Karakas was representing another client charged with a similar offence at the criminal court in Beyoglu and that Kamil Cigci was the complainant in a case brought against the perpetrators of her alleged rape in custody in the criminal court in Mardin. Attorney Keskin also raised the fact that since Fatma Karakas was a lawyer, the permission of the Ministry of Justice was required for any prosecution and this had not been obtained. The judge ordered the case against attorney Karakas to continue, stating that this issue could be dealt with later if need be.  Defence lawyer Eren Keskin being interviewed outside the trial. The three lawyers made short speeches supporting their clients, and asserting that the claims made in the congress speeches reflected the realities of life in Turkey for Kurdish women in custody. Due to the absence of the two other defendants, the hearing was then adjourned until a date in September 2001, when all five defendants should appear. At the September hearing, a further adjournment was ordered, to 25 December (a date the delegation believes was intentionally chosen as Christmas Day serves as a date when international observers are less likely to attend). The small courtroom was packed with supporters, representatives of foreign consulates, the KHRP delegation along with two UK women lawyers, and members of the Turkish press including Hrriyet, Sabah and Milliyet and TV journalists from NTV who interviewed the KHRP delegation, defendants and defence lawyers outside the court following the adjournment. Four prosecutions have been taken against lawyers of the Project. These proceedings illustrate that alleging and protesting against sexual torture of Kurdish women by agents of the state is itself considered a crime. Also, that to refer to Kurdish women or the Kurdish region is an indictable offence as it is construed as advocating separatism. An alternative term to describe the region where Kurdish people live as Eastern provinces or Southeastern Turkey is interpreted as meaning the Kurdish region and therefore the expression does not protect the speaker or writer from criminal charges. Human rights activists and lawyers representing Kurdish women in respect of alleged sexual abuse and rape themselves risk arrest, prosecution and imprisonment. These proceedings underscore the urgent need for human rights activists and lawyers from the international community to focus specifically on the human rights abuses experienced by Kurdish women, and particularly the way they become victims of grave sexual harassment and rape. They also evidence the widespread abuse of the rights of human rights defenders, both lawyers and activists. Following the adjournment of the trial, the delegation had a series of thirteen related interviews with various individuals, organisations and institutions over the course of the next two days. The Judge and Chief Public Prosecutor The delegation s interview with Judge Kksal ^engn who presided at the trial was cancelled although it had been arranged well in advance. The delegation was permitted to speak to another assistant judge in the trial but this meeting was short and non-productive. He refused to give his name and stated that he was unable to answer any questions we might wish to put to him, since this would require authorisation by the Ministry of Justice. In an interview with the Chief Public Prosecutor Muzaffer Yalin, the delegation decided not to discuss the actual case, but to focus on procedures and general issues of concern such as the independence of the judiciary, the weight of international human rights treaties and the impact of European Human Rights Court decisions. The following is a summary of what he told us. The Turkish justice system has adopted distinct European models. Procedures under the Penal Code are modelled on the German system. The Penal Code itself is modelled on the Italian Penal Code. There is no jury system. The State Security Courts (of which there are ten in the country) deal only with cases involving crimes against the unity of the country, and are mainly concerned with Articles 155, 158, 159 and 321 of the Penal Code and Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorist Law. The Chief Public Prosecutor is a party of the penal system. He is responsible for the supervision of other prosecutors within his department. He retains jurisdiction over the investigation of the case even when the investigation was started by the security forces. He decides on the punishment or penalty to be sought and whether to seek to acquit, increase, or reduce the penalty. The delegation voiced concerns about the physical arrangements of the court whereby the Chief Public Prosecutor sits up on the raised platform with the judges. The Chief Public Prosecutor said that it did not make any difference where people sat, and that, although he sat with the judges, they did not share files and he asserted that the judges were independent of the State. He maintained that the seating arrangements were the fault of the carpenters. Responding to questions concerning indictments on the grounds that words Kurdish women or Kurdish region are used in speeches and articles, he agreed that the Supreme Court had ruled that mere use of the word Kurd did not break the criminal law. But he said that when such words were used in the context of other assertions they could justify an indictment under Article 1(12) of the Penal Code. The court looked at the whole speech or article in order to deduce its meaning. It might note the frequent use of other words such as Eastern Provinces or Kurdistan as implying a support for separatism and anti-State actions. At this point he went over to his bookshelf and took out and read from various frayed volumes containing the Code and the Anti-Terrorist Law and quoted from various articles of the European Convention on Human Rights including Article 10. The delegation had been told of a Supreme Court decision which dismissed the argument that mere use of the word Kurd or Kurdish justified prosecution and conviction and asked the Chief Public Prosecutor to identify the date and details of this decision and whether it was binding on lower courts, but he was unable to locate this case. With reference to Article 9 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, he told the delegation that there is now a bill to change this law and Article 12 of the Penal Code so that it would read separatism by using violence. Article 12 relates to the medias role in advocating separatism. This bill would be debated when parliament reassembles in September 2001. As far as the delegation is aware, as of December 2001, no amendments have yet been made to the Anti-Terrorism Law. The delegation drew to his attention the 2,000 cases taken against Turkey to the European Court of Human Rights, of which he claimed that 171 had been won by Turkey, and the rest upheld against the State. He appeared unconcerned by the fact that Turkey had been fined 8 trillion Turkish lira in fines by the Court. Pressed about the excessive delays in the hearings of cases and the long-drawn out adjournments, he agreed that this was unsatisfactory and that the judiciary had expressed concerns. However, he asserted that this was due to an overload of work. With regard to the case the delegation had observed, the adjournment was necessary since not all the defendants were present. As for the arrests, prison detentions and prosecutions of lawyers acting for Kurdish defendants, the Chief Public Prosecutor told us that the lawyers prosecuted for representing defendants at the State Security Courts were militant people who worked as volunteers for terrorist organisations. He reassured the delegation that even where the lawyers had been found guilty and imprisoned, the Bar does not expel them, so they are free to practice on release. On the subject of rape and sexual harassment in custody, the Chief Public Prosecutor asserted that such practices were not common, but exceptional. It was untrue, he asserted, to say that such treatment was systematic. He declined to discuss this issue further since the issue of rape in custody was not a matter for the State Security Court but for the criminal courts. The delegation asked the Chief Public Prosecutor how he viewed the presence in his court of international human rights observers. He replied that he was happy the delegation had attended, as our experience would help to banish from our minds the misconceptions we might have had concerning what goes on in Turkey. The delegation and the Chief Public Prosecutor spoke briefly about the clear and open promises made by Turkey to the European Union in its application for membership including claims that it would enlarge the limits of freedom of expression and improve its human rights record. At the conclusion of the interview, the Chief Public Prosecutor compared the Turkish policy of clamping down on terrorism to the CIA in the US, and their use of the criteria of near or present danger to the State as justification for emergency anti-terrorist measures. He likened the activities of the PKK to those of ETA in Spain and the IRA in the UK, and argued that Turkeys battle against terrorism was similar to the UK governments battle to protect its citizens from the IRA and ensure national security, though the delegation pointed out the obvious differences. He appeared genuinely surprised that the UK had no state of emergency in operation and that UK police were generally unarmed. III. THE CASE IN CONTEXT Kurdish Women The delegation met with a number of Kurdish womens organisations, and organisations and individuals concerned with Kurdish women. It was explained to the delegation that in the Kurdish regions, women lived in constant fear of being detained by Village Guards, soldiers and police on the grounds that, since they are Kurds, they must be supporters of the PKK. Peaceful demonstrations are interpreted as supporting the PKK, and torture is inflicted on demonstrators once in custody, in police stations, as a means of obtaining confessions. Lawyers spoke of the suffering of children, often taken into custody with their mothers as a means of forcing confessions. Raping the mother in front of the child, forcing the child into lewd sexual perversions with the mother and torturing the child in front of the mother are not isolated incidents but quite common. Apart from the physical injuries, children are left extremely traumatised. Many are taken from their mothers and abandoned in orphanages without any specialist follow-up and care. Kurdish women also suffer the harsh consequences of displacement. Evicted from their homes and chased away from their destroyed villages, women end up in cities and towns of western Turkey where they face extreme forms of discrimination and terror. Unable to speak Turkish, their looks, their poor clothing and their presence begging and working on the streets identify their ethnic origins and they are often picked up by the police for the most trivial of reasons. In police detention they are often victims of brutal sexual torture. The grassroots organisation G-DER has done much to publicise the plight of migrants from eastern Turkey who come to Istanbul. Istanbul is crowded with migrants from all parts of rural Turkey displaced by the war and seeking work and escape from poverty. The position of Kurdish migrants is particularly harsh since however difficult conditions are in the city, they cannot return to their villages and homes, either because they no longer exist, having been burnt down, bombed and razed, or because they are forbidden to return by the security police and army. Many women are already traumatised by their experiences of eviction before they reach the city. In Istanbul and other cities they live in the twilight, in extreme poverty, crowded together in inadequate shelters and without work or social support. Often they have no knowledge of the Turkish language and are unable to manage. Landlords are unwilling to rent rooms to Kurds so that they are forced to live in abandoned buildings. They must depend on their young children to communicate for them, shop, and find work, putting them at risk. Many Kurdish girls between the ages of 13-17 are exploited as cheap labour in garment sweatshops. By their shabby appearance these migrants are easily identified as Kurdish people from the eastern provinces, and are targets for the police. They are frequently arrested for not having ID cards, or for loitering suspiciously, and for begging. The Peace Mothers Initiative was begun in 1996 by Kurdish women who had lost their children in the war. Thirty-six mothers formed a peace train to travel through Kurdistan to protest at the killings, detentions and disappearances of their relatives. By 1998 their campaign had received international attention and they had become very active. They have held vigils every Saturday in Istanbul. They are now hopeful that, with Turkey now seeking membership of the EU and its human rights record under European scrutiny, their voices will be heard and Turkey will be made to stop its brutal torture of Kurdish women and children. On the 5th September 2000, five peace mothers went to Diyarbakir and on to northern Iraq. They wanted to talk to the Kurdish factions still fighting after the ceasefire and beg them to negotiate with the authorities for a peaceful solution. As they were returning home they were arrested by the security forces and sexually harassed whilst detained. They were accused of working for the PKK. A successful prosecution could have led to sentences of 24 years, but, following international protests, the sentences were reduced to one month. They are now bringing their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. Their lawyer is the indefatigable Eren Keskin who wrote an article about their ordeal that has resulted in she herself being charged with the crime of insulting State officials. The delegation spoke with one mother in her sixties who had lost five of her sons: two were killed and three have disappeared, feared dead. She herself had been taken into custody where she was threatened with rape. The Village Guards threatened to take her to the sex control centre since she alleged she had been sexually harassed. They accused her of working with the PKK. They said: You are Kurdish so you are helping them. In 1992 this womans twenty-six year old daughter was arrested, detained four times, and allegedly tortured while in custody during thirteen days. Electric shocks were applied to her tongue. On release she found refuge with an uncle and threatened to throw herself out of his 10th floor window if the police came for her again. After this experience, the daughter has suffered extreme trauma and will not speak further about what happened to her in custody. Her mother does not know where she is since she fled from her uncles flat. As explained to the delegation by members of the Dicli Womens Cultural and Arts Centre, for some Kurdish women, a major obstacle to their empowerment is the attitude of Kurdish men who prefer their women to stay at home and occupy themselves exclusively with domestic activities. The group explained that in some traditional communities, Kurdish women are seen as so inferior to men that they could not even eat with them. More traditional Kurdish men outside the Kurdish political movement often actively discourage their womenfolk from attending courses or becoming members of NGOs. Nevertheless, in spite of this opposition, membership of womens NGOs is growing. Many of those with whom the delegation met are concerned about the high incidence of domestic violence, resulting in physical and emotional damage. There is a high level of depression, suicides and attempted suicide but this subject is badly documented because of the taboo in discussing this phenomenon. In the year 2000, there were 100 deaths from suicide reported but this could be the tip of the iceberg. The concept of honour is strong and honour killings are part of the tradition. According to this tradition, if a woman is considered to have behaved in a way that shames her family, the man is considered justified in taking physical action. Last year, in Urfa, a 14 year-old Kurdish girl who had been raped was killed by her family as a matter of honour. The delegation heard that police stake out girls secondary schools and take teenagers into the woods where they are sexually assaulted or threatened with rape. They are then invited, as a price of their release, to become informers. There have been instances where school heads have called in the police and informed on their students. The Womens Rights Enforcement Centre in Istanbul was set up in 1999. All the lawyers working there as consultants have taken a special 3-day practical training course provided by the Centre. It provides legal advice and support to women who have suffered gender-related violence physical, sexual and mental and are economically deprived. It works in the context of the UN Womens Convention (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action, and lobbies for changes in the Turkish Civil Code which remains discriminatory to women in many aspects of their lives. The Centre produces Know Your Rights pamphlets for women and manages an archive of materials in their Womens Rights Library and Information Centre. By June 2000 the Centre had taken 7,000 calls and given advice. The Centres free clinic is staffed by a team of 107 volunteer women lawyers and has pursued 800 cases since 1999. It has also providing training on womens rights to the Istanbul police, particularly on the provisions in the new 1998 Family Law. Women lawyers meet considerable opposition in the courts, dealing with domestic violence cases, and the presumptions in favour of husbands. There have been instances where the Centres women lawyers have been physically thrown out of court. Judges often address them in a humiliating and disparaging way. The Centre is conscious that most Kurdish women remain silent about the abuse they endure. Gender-related violence is endemic in many communities, and the incidence of suicide, in some provinces, is high. In the province of Batman, for example, there have been more than 100 attempted suicides by women victims of violence. However, since, for Kurdish people generally, State violence is so rife and brutal, Kurdish women are often reluctant to speak out about the violence they experience at the hands of family members, especially husbands. This violence in the outside society causes men to mete out, by transference violence within the family; Kurdish women understandably are unwilling to report their men to the Turkish police who systematically mistreat their communities, men and women. One victimised wife declared, I will not give my husband up to the Turkish Police, and instructed the lawyer to withdraw her case although she had been badly beaten. One of the lawyers expressed the wish that the delegation could visit the eastern regions and interview womens organisations and women there in order to get a better idea of the problem. In the larger cities like Istanbul, where thousands of Kurds who were forced to leave their destroyed homes and villages now live, domestic violence, though common, is barely spoken of, as if it is something which must be endured whilst the struggle for survival in poverty and avoidance of police pick-ups is the overriding concern. The Centre is hopeful that change, although slow, is on the way, helped by the circulation of Kurdish feminist magazines which regularly publish articles on violence to women and womens rights. Brutality against and displacement and detentions of the Kurdish population have been prevalent in Turkey for many years, but until the June 2000 congress the treatment of Kurdish women under the present regime has had less coverage than the treatment of men. Kurdish women, often illiterate, or not speaking Turkish, are less aware of their rights, or how to contact lawyers to represent them. They are the most vulnerable members of their communities and victimised sexually by State agents, Village Guards, the police, the military and prison staff as a means of destabilising their family and community life and destroying their cultural and sexual identity irrevocably. In a country such as Turkey, the virginity of unmarried women and the chastity and honour of all women is of paramount importance. Destroying Kurdish women in this way strikes at one of the most important centres of Kurdish culture. Kurdish women who have been raped are often subsequently ostracised by their families and communities, and even killed in a crime of honour. A girl of fourteen who was taken into custody because she was not carrying an ID card attempted suicide after she had been raped. Totally traumatised by her experiences in detention, the delegation was told that she now acts like a two-year old. Difficulties faced by lawyers in representing their clients The delegation heard that the issue of sexual violence against women in custody was very much a taboo subject and that one of the problems was that in general women were reluctant to discuss these experiences because of the stigma surrounding female rape victims. Such cases were more likely to be reported to human rights organisations such as The Foundation for Social and Legal Studies (TOHAV) or the Human Rights Association of Turkey (IHD). The Istanbul Bar Association assigns a considerable number of torture cases to lawyers on their panel, but it is rare for these to include sexual assaults. Lawyers representing Kurdish clients who are members of the Istanbul Bar are frequently subject to invective and verbal attacks, as well as to prosecutions for being terrorist lawyers. They have been accused of taking mobile phones, drugs and foreign newspapers into prisons when visiting for consultations with detainees. They are routinely subjected to invasive body searches. Sometimes, they are unable to meet with their clients in private as prison guards remain within hearing distance. In recent months there have been incidents where lawyers permitted access to people in detention have been forced to surrender their papers to prison officers before or after interviewing their clients. At the present time, it is becoming increasingly difficult for lawyers to meet with clients in prison. The delegation was told that it is unclear from where the policy to refuse permits to lawyers originated, but the ban has been widespread across Turkey, and not just in Istanbul. These practices against lawyers often contravene Turkeys own laws and regulations. When lawyers are prosecuted on charges of expressing propaganda against the States indivisibility or for having openly incited people to enmity and hatred by pointing to class, racial, religious, confessional or regional differences because of some phrase they have used in their arguments for the defence, the Bar Association, sensitive to criticism of its members professionalism, thoroughly investigates the complaints. If there were justifiable grounds for revoking a practice license they would do so. But if the Bar Associations examination of the States complaints finds that in fact the authorities were attempting to silence a lawyer for expressing a valid opinion, the Bar does not take action against the lawyer. The delegation was told that the Bar takes seriously its responsibility to protect human rights defenders. The Bars own activities were often subject to investigation and complaint. The authorities perceive defence lawyers in the criminal and State Security courts as biased and working against the government, and associate the lawyer with his or her client. It tends to project the philosophy, beliefs and political views of the client on to the legal representative. The Bar Association believes that the State must honour a defendants human right to be represented by counsel and a lawyers right to represent whoever he or she chooses as a client, irrespective of the content of the indictment. They also emphasized the importance of human rights training for the Turkish judiciary, police, gendarmerie, prison staff and government officials if the country is to function democratically and abide by its obligations under ratified international treaties and conventions. The Istanbul Bar ferociously guards its independence and works hard to protect its members from oppressive tactics from the State. Medical Evidence and Doctors Experiences Medical professionals drew the delegations attention to a number of crucial issues relating to medical evidence in sexual violence in custody cases. The definition of rape in the Turkish Penal Code is one problem. Non-penile vaginal penetration (by, for example, truncheons, bottles and electric shock) carries a much-reduced punishment, compared with penile rape, but can cause far greater physical and mental harm. The need to reformulate codes of practice concerning the treatment of women detainees who allege they have been raped or sexually harassed was mentioned. Under the existing system, women may be medically examined on arrest and at 48 hour intervals, but the examinations are not thorough, no medical histories are taken and often the police remain in the room, to the further distress and trauma of the victims in spite of a Ministry of Health protocol stating that Physicians should never permit members of the police or security forces into the consulting room. Those with whom the delegation spoke felt that the courts should not accept reports unless the physician has certified that the police were not present during the examination. Women dare not speak of their experiences if the police are in earshot. During one trial, a doctor testified that during an examination the police were waiting one meter from the door and could hear and partly see the examination. The importance of psychological examination of women victims, as only these can reveal the degree of trauma suffered, was also stressed. Another problem that was identified was the need to change attitudes at the policy-making level and to train law enforcement officers, Public Prosecutors, and the judiciary so that they are better equipped to evaluate scientific reports. A key issue raised by many is the fact that too many forensic reports are dismissed by the courts. For example, the Public Prosecutor may refer alleged victims to the Institute of Forensic Medicine for examination. Recently, womens organisations have also begun to refer women to the Institute. The Institute is independent of the government but its reports are rarely accepted by the courts on the grounds that they are biased in favour of the victims. The court asserts that the Institutes findings are not scientific and not impartial. The delegation also heard about the notorious case of Fatma Tokmak and her two-year old son, Azat, both of whom were allegedly tortured in prison. In front of his mother, police officers burnt her childs hands with cigarettes and administered electric shocks to his back in order to elicit a confession from Fatma that she supported the PKK. In 1997, she filed a formal complaint against the perpetrators, but the Prosecutor would not accept the medical report from the Istanbul Medical Chamber that corroborated Fatma Tokmaks testimony. The IMC report described the burn scar, confirmed the time that the burns were inflicted and also stated that the child suffered Post Traumatic Stress disorder. The local court requested a medical examination with the State Forensic Institute, but examiners stated that it was medically impossible to identify when the wound was caused, and Fatma s complaint was rejected. Professor Fincanc1 heads the Forensic Medicine Institute at Istanbul Medical Faculty Hospital, and is a remarkable and courageous woman. Because her findings, in almost all cases, have upheld the victims testimonies, last year the Governor of Istanbul submitted a formal complaint against her to the government. However, due to her international reputation and the protests made on her behalf by international medical organisations, she was retained in her post. Nevertheless, her junior colleagues have been intimidated and threatened with dismissal with the result that they are reluctant to sign reports. The 1977 Istanbul Medical Charter has approved the Institutes reports but the courts prefer to rely on the reports of the State Institute and have, in many cases, refused to accept those of the Forensic Medicine Institute. Dr. Ufuk Sezgin is a psychologist working in the trauma faculty of apa University. She and her team are qualified to investigate and report on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following sexual harassment and rape. Patients are referred to her from the Faculty of Forensic Medicine and by lawyers representing victims of torture. The Legal Aid Project for women often refers patients to her department. Her first woman patient was the journalist Asiye Zeybek Guzel, whose book A Story of Rape under Torture inspired the June 2000 Assembly. In Turkey, she explained, the principle of expert witness evidence has not been a feature of court procedure, so she was surprised when her initial reports for the criminal courts on the trauma effects of incest were accepted. However, attitudes have changed and it is now rare for psychological reports on trauma to be admitted by the judges or prosecutors, and especially not when they concern PTSD suffered following experiences in custody. Dr. Sezgin has examined 546 people for PTSD, the majority of whom are Kurdish women detainees brought from the prisons. The sexual torture the women allege has mainly occurred in police stations, and the alleged perpetrators are Village Guards, police and soldiers. Fewer such assaults occur in prison, where women are safer than outside. Dr. Sezgin is not permitted to speak to her patients alone. Although handcuffs are removed, armed guards are in attendance. Dr. Sezgin laments the fact that there are no resources to help traumatised women and children in the prisons and in the community. She is not permitted to visit women in detention, but one NGO project has developed in one prison, to bring women together as a group to share experiences and feelings. In her view, this is not enough. Child abuse, incest, and domestic violence are endemic, but there are no shelters for women and children, and no social security or other benefits to support them. The only womens refuge in Istanbul, which could cater for 40 women and children, has had to close down for lack of funds. Womens organisations, such as KA-MER (the Womens Human Rights Centre) do what they can. As for virginity tests, the Turkish Medical Association has condemned their widespread use and described them as a form of gender-based violence. Women in Turkey are often subjected to such examinations by forensic physicians for legal and social reasons. Little is known about these physicians role and attitudes to this practice. IV. APPLICABLE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS Turkey has a wide range of obligations under international human rights instruments that are applicable to the issues raised in this report. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are absolutely prohibited by a number of instruments that Turkey has ratified, among them the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984, and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In a case brought with the assistance of KHRP, Aydin v. Turkey, the European Court found that the applicant had been raped by a state official while in custody and that this amounted to torture. Turkey has also been frequently and severely criticised by Europes prison monitoring body, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which has made several visits to inspect Turkish prisons in recent years. In its Report to the Turkish Government on the visit to Turkey carried out in 1997, published in 1999, the CPT noted that the existence and extent of the problem of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of criminal suspects by law enforcement officials and more particularly by police officers has been established beyond all doubt in the course of previous CPT visits to Turkey during the period 1990 to 1996. Another key issue raised in this report is that of freedom of expression and in particular, the rights of human rights defenders. The European Convention on Human Rights, at Article 10, guarantees the right to freedom of expression, and the European Court has found Turkey to have violated this Article in a number of cases. Turkey was an active participant in the development of the 1998 General Assembly Declaration on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. The Declaration emphasises that it is the duty of states to take all necessary steps to ensure that all persons are able to enjoy the rights contained in the Declaration, which includes the right freely to publish, impart or disseminate to others views, information and knowledge on all human rights and fundamental freedoms and to study, discuss, form and hold opinions on the observance, both in law and in practice, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and, through these and other appropriate means, to draw public attention to those matters (Article 6, paragraphs (b) and (c)) Further, people have the right to complain about the policies and actions of individual officials and government bodies (Article 9.3 (a)). In addition to the general duty to protect human rights defenders, international law also specifically provides guarantees for the functioning of lawyers. For instance, Article 16 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers provides: Governments shall ensure that lawyers a) are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, harassment or improper interference; b) are able to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad; and c) shall not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards and ethics Article 18 of these Basic Principles specifies that lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients causes as a result of discharging their functions. Further, this document guarantees that all consultations and communications between lawyers and their clients should be confidential (Article 22). Turkey has also made a number of international commitments when it comes to the rights of women. Turkey has ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and agreed the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the follow-up document, Further Actions Women 2000. The Beijing Platform for Action singles out Violence against Women as a major obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace. Turkey has signed but not yet ratified the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. Turkey is now applying to become a full member of an enlarged European Union, and, in compliance with the Copenhagen Criteria has undertaken to improve its human rights record. In its last regular progress report on Turkey, the European Commission says that: In practice, the situation as regards torture and mistreatment has not improved since the last Regular Report and still gives serious grounds for concern. The report notes that torture is especially prevalent in the Southeast, and particularly in the context of incommunicado detention that is applied in particular in the four provinces still under State of Emergency. The same report also stated that there had been serious problems in the past year in relation to the exercise of freedom of expression, with around 9,000 people currently in prison for crimes connected to freedom of expression. The report refers specifically to Article 312 of the Penal Code and Articles 7 and 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Law in this context. VI. CONCLUSIONS Turkey has ratified or signed a raft of international human rights instruments. It is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom from torture and other forms of ill-treatment, freedom of expression and the right to family life amongst other human rights. Turkey ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and agreed the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the follow-up document, Further Actions Women 2000. Turkey is also party to the UN Convention against Torture and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Turkey was an active participant in the development of the 1998 General Assembly Declaration on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. Turkey is now applying to become a full member of an enlarged European Union, and, in compliance with the Copenhagen Criteria has undertaken to improve its human rights record. However, its government has remained mainly silent on the issue of State agents abhorrent treatment of women, especially Kurdish women. Nor, it might be argued, has the EU, the UN or international community as a whole, addressed adequately the abysmal state of womens rights in Turkey, probably because, until comparatively recently, the grave human rights abuses experienced by women were hidden from the public eye. We must applaud the NGOs in Turkey for revealing these realities. The publication of Sexual Violence Perpetrated by the State by the Project Legal Aid for Women Raped or Sexually Assaulted by State Security Forces and its June 2000 congress has finally brought to light the truth about torture inflicted on Kurdish women in custody. The organisers and the women who came forward then and since to speak publicly about what happened to them in detention have shown enormous courage. The reaction of the State to these acts of courage was to arrest, detain and prosecute many of their number, including women lawyers who were representing victims of sexual torture in the criminal courts. Sexual torture can range from being forced to strip naked, beginning at the time of arrest, to humiliating and insulting verbal sexual attacks and threats. It can mean abuse of sexual organs, to threats of rape and rape itself, either vaginal or anal, using body parts, and objects such as truncheons, bottles and electric shock cords. Often the woman is blindfolded during the violation. She might be raped or gang raped in front of her small child, or have to watch his or her torture. The damage done to women and girls causes long-lasting psychological trauma, as well as physical damage. Rape victims may be ostracised by their own families and some may be victims of honour killings or so degraded by what happened to them that they commit suicide. Sexual torture is applied even where no arrest or detention has taken place. During operations in the villages, women are stripped and sexually abused in front of the community and abduction and rape by the militia is a common occurrence. In war zones, and during armed conflict and ethnic cleansing, attacks against the sexual integrity of women are now a feature of warfare worldwide (Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, East Timor, Chechnya). At last those who perpetrated rape on innocent women in Rwanda and in Bosnia and Kosovo are pursued by the International Criminal Tribunals. As the violators and murderers of innocent men, women and children appear before the judges in Arusha and at the Hague, we suggest that Turkeys State agents should also be judged according to international legal standards. We urge the EU member states, the European Commission and the Council of Europe to break the taboo of silence and focus on the systematic sexual abuse of women by the State. Turkeys candidacy for EU membership can be seen as a window of opportunity for a radical change in its justice system, laws and policies. It is unthinkable that Turkey could be accepted into membership when every day in villages, police stations and prisons, women and children are systematically tortured and lives are wrecked forever.  The Trial Observation delegation in Istanbul following the trial (from left to right: KHRP Project Officer Tina Devadasan, Kristiina Koivunen, Margaret Owen, Omer Moore, the two defendants Nahide Kilic and Zeynep Ovayolu, and defence lawyers Gulseren Yoleri and Eren Keskin). VII. RECOMMENDATIONS We call upon the Turkish government to: Stop the sexual torture of women by State agents; Identify and punish with appropriate penalties the perpetrators; Ensure full and appropriate reparation to the victims; Allow freedom of association and expression to human rights and womens NGOs; Permit research on the issue of sexual torture in custody and allow the findings to be published; Ensure that courts admit psychological and medical reports from independent institutions and consultants; Honour the rights of lawyers, as human rights defenders, to represent their clients without fear of arrest and to visit them in custody; Respect the integrity and professionalism of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists in preparing reports on alleged women torture victims; Permit women doctors and trauma specialists to visit women in prison; Ratify the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on Economic Social and Cultural Rights; Set up a Commission to reform the justice system and to bring Turkish law and practice up to the standards required by international law; Ensure that all State agents involved in law and order attend human rights training courses, and monitor their progress in implementing what they have learnt; Amend all laws, including the Civil Code Family Law, to ensure that they comply with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Amend the Penal Law so as to provide a wider definition of the crime of rape and other acts of sexual violence, and to provide for appropriately serious penalties.  Agreed at the UN 4th World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China on 4-15 September 1995, UN Department of Public Information, UN doc DP1/1766/Wom, February 1996.  In April 1985, Turkeys Village Law was amended to allow for the maintenance of temporary Village Guards paid by the Turkish government to fight against PKK guerrillas. In addition to rape and sexual assault, the Village Guards have been implicated in extra-judicial killings and drug trafficking.  Honour killings still tolerated in Turkey, Hande Culpan, Agence France-Presse, 18 June 2001.  Letter from Turkey: Virginity Examinations in Turkey, Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 282, No.5, 4 August 1999, pp.485-490.  See below Section III.  See KHRPs reports including Internal Displacement of Kurds in Southeast Turkey, forthcoming; Mentes and Others v. Turkey: A KHRP Case Report on Village Destruction in Turkey, September 1998; and The Destruction of Villages in Southeast Turkey, KHRP and Medico International, June 1996.  Following the decision in Aksoy v Turkey in 1996, in which the European Court of Human Rights found the period of 14 days in detention without judicial intervention to be excessive and in breach of the Convention, Turkey introduced legislation reducing the permissible period of detention from 30 days to 10 in the Southeast and down from 10 days to 4 in the rest of Turkey.  See Annex 1 which contains extracts from the relevant legislation.  Amnesty International, Medical Concern: Torture of women and children in Turkey, 20 February 2001.  Turkish Penal Code Part 8, Articles 414-428. See also Virginity Examinations in Turkey, JAMA, August 4 1999, Vol. 282 No.5, p. 485.  Virginity testing is apparently widespread in Turkey. The delegation was told by members of the Toiler Womens Union [EKB] that it is a relatively common practice for school authorities to order such examinations, often claiming that it is to protect young girls from underage sex and prostitution.  Aydin v. Turkey, Case No. 57/1996/676/866, Report of the Commission of 7 March 1996 and Judgment of the Court of 25 September 1997. See also the KHRP case report, Aksoy v. Turkey & Aydin v. Turkey: Case Reports on the Practice of Torture in Turkey -volumes I and II, December 1997.  Interview with Eren Keskin at Human Rights Association (IHD) - Istanbul, 28 June 2001. Also, interview with Professor Sebnem Koru Fincanc1 at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at apa University, 29 June 2001.  See also Amnesty International press release of 21 March 2001, AI Index EUR 44/013/2001, regarding this case.  See charge sheets, at Annex 2.  Law no. 765.  Law no. 3713 of 12 April 1991, as amended by Law no. 4126 of 27 October 1995.  The other case is described below, in Section III.  Interview at the Istanbul State Security Court, 29 June 2001.  Interview at the Istanbul State Security Court, 29 June 2001.  The delegation assumes he was referring to friendly settlements at the European Court which are far from wins but rather judgments in which Turkey pays compensation to the applicant and, in some instances, issues a declaration admitting liability. Among the 36 judgments in KHRP cases at the European Court, the Court has found no violation in only two cases: the case of Gundem v Turkey which was decided in Turkeys favour due to the fact that the applicant failed to appear before the Court in Strasbourg because he had been intimidated and the case of Aytekin v Turkey in which the applicant was deemed to have failed to exhaust domestic remedies. The latter case is currently being re-litigated by KHRP at the European Court.  Interview on 28 June 2001, Istanbul.  See for example an AFP report, Honour killings still tolerated in Turkey, 18 June 2001, reporting on minor sentences imposed on those who commit honour killings.  For additional details about the recent repression and harassment of human rights lawyers in Turkey, see the KHRP report, The F-Type Prison Crisis and the Repression of Human Rights Defenders in Turkey, published in association 1c i/0DWYbd%'01i6A45"""""t#u#$$$$''/1ǾǸǡǗǏxǸhs@B*phjhs@0JB*Uphhs@B*phjhs@0JUhs@5CJ\ hs@6CJ hs@CJ] hs@CJhs@5CJ\hs@ h2 Th2 T h2 T5CJ$ h2 T6h2 TB*phh2 T5CJ \ h2 TCJ h2 T5CJ8h2 T, '1234[$a$gd2 T $`a$gd2 Tgd2 T$a$gd2 T>ݖ + , c $d`a$gd2 Tgd2 T$a$gd2 Tgd2 Tgd2 Tc k l   J K 0 5 ijk/0DXbcdx $Oa$gd2 Tgd2 T$a$gd2 Tgd2 Tgd2 Txy.Pv/efg$^`a$gd2 T $^a$gd2 T $`a$gd2 T$^`a$gd2 T$a$gd2 T$%&/Zh!"#$%&'01gd2 T$a$gd2 T $ & Fa$gd2 T$a$gd2 T $`a$gd2 T1  q"r""""""""""&&)))-*-//$a$$a$11111828Y88"9;>>@@AAHH!K"KyMzM{MMMMNN3O9OQQSSTT`UUUU]]J]Y]^^bbOdPdgdhdeeelfmfFhGhHhi>i hs@56hs@5B*ph hs@6CJ hs@CJ]hs@6CJ]hs@B*CJph hs@5CJhs@B*CJph hs@CJ hs@5hs@ hs@CJjhs@0JCJU=/33r6s6182838485868D8K8Y8Z8[8i8j888>>@@nCoCDDJ$a$$a$JJLLMMMPPQQSSUUGYHYZZ]]__daeaOdPdgdhddh$a$hdeeGhHhkkooppppppqq|r~rrrrrrrst$^a$dh$a$$a$>immoppq|r~rrrrssvvvwwww xx0x1x3xzz{zzzzz΀πKnFGK\l{1ֱָָ֜hs@B*CJphhs@5CJH*jhs@0JCJU hs@6CJjhs@0J5CJUjhs@0JU hs@CJ hs@5CJhs@ hs@5CJ hs@CJjhs@0J5U hs@58tKttttvvvvvvw x x x xxxx2x3xyyzz{z^$`a$$a$$`a$$^a$$a${zzz||΀πJK\l{DE45Z[$a$dh$a$^[01 $`a$$a$$^a$$a$$a$#1CDPFNPUZbrs57]Gacd|=BFM hs@5CJjhs@0JCJU hs@CJ hs@5hs@6CJ] hs@:CJhs@B*CJphhs@5CJ\"jhs@CJUmHnHsH u hs@6CJ hs@5\hs@ hs@CJjhs@UmHnHsH u4123CD $a$$a$$a$$a$$a$ PQrs567]^45$a$$a$ $^`a$$a$cdˮ̮ /0qr&'=>'($a$$a$ Ұz{ &'=>'y{UWUV'(d|}"LM() 5 ǽǸǸhs@ hs@5CJ hs@CJ]jhs@0J5U hs@CJH* hs@5hs@B*CJph hs@CJhs@56CJ hs@5CJjhs@0JCJUhs@B*CJph hs@6CJ hs@CJ:(:;TUUVKL'(de$a$dh$a$45 !"LMJK:;1 4 $a$$a$1#$%(*+rs""F#G###$$.'?'@'L*M*,"-J2K2o7p7q77888O>>> ? ?X??ǯǦhs@B*ph hs@H*jhs@0JUhs@5CJ\ hs@5CJ!jhs@5UmHnHsH u hs@5CJ hs@5 hs@6CJhs@6CJ] hs@CJhs@ hs@CJjhs@0JCJU3 12,-  "$^a$$a$""F#G#%%,'-'.'?'@'L*M*,,V/W/J2K233l5m566o7q7r7s7$dha$$a$s7t7u7v7w7x7y7z7{7|7}7~777777777788889$ & F 88^8a$^$a$99R9S99999<:=:::1;2;;;<<u<v<====N>O>$ 8a$$ & F 88^8a$$^a$O>>?@/AAABtDDEEFFGI8JYJhJJJ-KmKPNwNOsא$a$ & F 88^8??@@@ AA/A0AiAAAAAAAA*B9BBBBBBC$CtDuDDDD EEEWEyEEEFFFFFFYG{GGGGGGGII8J9JYJZJhJiJJJJJ-K.K麰hs@B*\phhs@B*\phhs@6B*\]ph hs@6] hs@6hs@jhs@0JUhs@B*phhs@B*phjhs@0JB*UphA.KmKnKLLMMPNQNwNxNNNOOOOP stǐِؐڐ\~ґ1 #RSDERSIJݖޖ¸¸hs@0JmHnHu hs@0Jjhs@0JU hs@H*hs@B*\phhs@6B*\]phhs@B*phU hs@\hs@6\] hs@6 hs@6]jhs@0JUhs@< with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), October 2001.  See for example an AP report, Turkish virginity tests anger nurses, womens groups, 19 July 2001.  Aydin v. Turkey, Case No. 57/1996/676/866, Report of the Commission of 7 March 1996 and Judgment of the Court of 25 September 1997. See also the KHRP case report, Aksoy v. Turkey & Aydin v. Turkey: Case Reports on the Practice of Torture in Turkey -volumes I and II, December 1997.  CPT/Inf(99) 2 (EN), published in February 1999. See also The F-Type Prison Crisis and the Repression of Human Rights Defenders in Turkey, October 2001, published by KHRP with the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the World Organisation against Torture.  For example Ozgur Gundem v. Turkey, Case No. 23144/93, Judgment of 16 March 2000  Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 53/144 of 8 March 1999.  Adopted by the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1990.  Agreed at the UN 4th World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China on 4-15 September 1995, UN Department of Public Information, UN doc DP1/1766/Wom, February 1996.  According to the Copenhagen Criteria, membership of the EU requires, inter alia, that the candidate State has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.  2001 Regular Report on Turkeys Progress Towards Accession, Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 13 November 2001, SEC (2001) 1756. 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