Human Rights Violation

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

Human rights are the rights which people have from birth to live under humanly circumstances. These rights are protected by both government and society’s itself. Government contributes to this protection with laws and rules in constitution and agreements. Human rights will also be defended by society as people learn, adopt their rights and respect others’ rights. Nonetheless, does really government want to do something for protection human rights? , or how much does one respect to another’s rights? Moreover, how many people are there that they know their rights properly? If these questions answers were affirmative, there would be no human rights violation. Judicial complications, discrimination among people, and problem of education are three main reasons for human rights violation in Turkey.

First of all, judicial complications which can be thought into two groups, namely, wrong verdicts and easy escape without punishment for military and police officials cause to invade the human rights. In the courts, there are a lot of procedure, rules and laws to be implemented by judges. Therefore, they work on and analyze trails very carefully. If judges skip something consciously or unconsciously and return wrong verdict for a trail, then it will be human rights violation. For example, Turgay Ulu who was charged with saving Kenan GÐ"јngÐ"¶r a so-called member of the Revolutionary Communist Union of Turkey (TÐ"oKB) from police custody on 29 May 1996. He denied this blaming and he indicated that he was nearly blind because he was myopia with the degree of minus eight. In addition to this, two police officers who said that they saw the man trying to free the Kenan GÐ"јngÐ"¶r claimed that the man was not Turgay Ulu. However, on 26 April 2002 after many trails the court sentenced him with life imprisonment. Turgay Ulu is still in KandÐ"±ra F-type Prison in Kocaeli (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR44/013/2006/en/dom-EUR440132006en.html, 2006). Moreover, easy escape without punishment for police and military officials is an important problem included by judicial complications for human rights violation in Turkey. They are very free to do whatever they want in their jobs. They behave very badly and do unjustness to the defendants. Although there are some laws in constitution related with restrictions for these officials, no body warns them about their wrong and unfair behaviors. A good illustration for this case is the Mehmet AytunÐ"§ Altay’s court. He was detained on 2 February 1993 because he was charged with being a prominent member of Turkish Communist Party and doing some illegal things such as robbery and bombings. Then on 11 May 1993 he gave a complaint petition, since he alleged the police officers ill-treated him when he was in police custody. According to medical report, Mehmet AytunÐ"§ Altay was subject to torture. Although, The Istanbul Governor instructed the chief of Istanbul Police to ascertain the ill-treatment event, on 21 June 1993 the chief of Istanbul Police wanted to stop the investigation for not having enough evidence from the Governor and the Governor accepted this request; however, neither the Istanbul Governor nor the public prosecutor informed Mehmet AytunÐ"§ Altay from this decision (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR44/013/2006/en/dom-EUR440132006en.html, 2006).

Secondly, not only judicial power but also society doing discrimination among people affects the human rights violation. Turkey has lots of minority nations such as Armenian, Greek, and Jewish people. However, they sometimes subject to unfair situations. Discrimination against minorities leads to invade their rights. For instance, Hrant Dink Armenian journalist was killed on 19 January 20007 by an under-eighteen Turkish boy. Amnesty International claimed that “Hrant Dink’s killing took place in the context of an increasing pattern of deadly intolerance of freedom of expression” (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR44/012/2007/en/dom-EUR440122007en.html, 2007). Discrimination against gender is also very common in Turkey especially in the east part of Turkey. For example, according to Erci’s study (2003) which was done in Erzurum to determine the women’s efficiency in decision making and their status within the family, women are more passive than men when they try to decide something, she indicates that the decision making of women is affected because of their low education level and their classical family woman perception (as cited in OruÐ"§, 2007).

Finally, problem of education is another issue directly related with human rights violation. Education about human rights in Turkish schools is not efficient and books are not well-contented to make students a-conscious-person about human rights in the future. For instance, Gemalmaz indicates in his study which he