AKP and Human Rights
“Human Rights in the Era of the AKP” by Howard Eissenstat (click here for full text):
…Turkey’s stance on basic human rights is complex. On the one hand, Turkey is a functioning parliamentary democracy with regular, free, fair elections in a region where this is still a rarity. Despite important limitations, the Turkish press is both broad and diverse. If most of the mainstream Turkish media tends toward populist nationalism, there are a number of influential sources (mostly print) that persistently and successfully critique the great and the powerful.
On the other hand, restrictions on freedom of expression and limitations on the press, while enforced only sporadically, are enforced nonetheless, and have a significant cooling effect on public debate. More important is the extent to which the Turkish public accepts these restrictions and other basic limitations on human rights. Among the myriad problems facing Turkey, only one percent of the population cites the justice system as the most important problem facing the country, and only two percent cite democratization. The fiercely nationalist quality of much of Turkish public discourse makes many types of debate suspect, with even the most basic criticisms often seen as treasonous. Similarly, a recent poll suggests that Turks are remarkably accepting of the state’s use of torture, with a slight majority favoring its limited use in terrorism cases and as much as eighteen percent believing that the state has the right to use it freely. Support for a total ban on torture in Turkey was lower than in any of the countries polled in both the Middle East and Europe…
The painful reality is that domestic pressure for expanded freedom of expression, minority rights, and protection from abuse by members of the security services is extremely limited. There are important NGOs working to document human rights abuses and defend basic freedoms in Turkey, but they represent an embattled fringe and have a limited role in popular discourse…
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