Public prosecutors started 1.576 million investigations on terrorism-related charges between 2016 and 2020, finalizing 208,833 of them, BirGün Daily reported, citing the 2020 statistics published by the Minister of Justice.
Speaking to Zilan Akay of BirGün Daily, lawyer Bilgin Yeşilboğaz said the number of investigations are so high because of the vague definition of terrorism in Turkish law.
“The definition of terrorism constantly changes in [Turkey],” Yeşilboğaz said. “Every action we take or statement we make are considered not in terms of freedom of thought and expression but in terms of terrorism.”
According to Yeşilboğaz, it is impossible to have so many terrorism related cases from a legal perspective. “The numbers would be much less if international criteria were used for which actions would be considered as part of terrorism related crimes, she said. “The government considers anything against it as terrorism. … In this country, you can be a terrorist in an instance.”
Turkish government has been widely criticized for misusing the vague and imprecise charge of “membership in an armed terrorist organization” to target critics of its policies and to criminalize legitimate activities.
In August 2020, UN rapporteurs sent a joint UN letter to the Turkish government to underline that Ankara’s anti-terror law (No. 3713) does not comply with its international law obligations and that the country’s anti-terror legal framework should be urgently revised.
Similarly, the vice chair of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and three special rapporteurs sent a letter to the Turkish government in November 2020, saying that terrorism related charges appears to be repeatedly misused to target the government’s critics.
The post Turkish prosecutors filed over 1,5 million terrorism-related investigations between 2016 and 2020: report appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-prosecutors-filed-over-15-million-terrorism-related-investigations-between-2016-and-2020-report/
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder