Turkish Forum

Tag: Human Rights Turkey

  • Turkey in breach of human rights during military operation

    Turkey in breach of human rights during military operation

    The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered Turkey on 26 February to pay €100,000 court award after it found the county in breach of human rights during a military operation.

    Turkey military operation

    The case Bozkir and Others v. Turkey, which is not final, dealt with the complaint of 18 Turkish nationals whose relatives disappeared during a military operation in August 1996 after an armed clash between the PKK (The Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the military. The applicants alleged, in particular, that their relatives should have been by now presumed dead and that it was the security forces who had detained them and had been responsible for their ensuing disappearance and death.

    Moreover, they also complained, relying on article 2 (right to life) and article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights, about the authorities’ failure to carry out any meaningful investigation into the disappearances.

    The Strasbourg-based court ruled that there was no violation of article 2 in respect of the disappearance of the applicants’ relatives. However, the ECtHR said that Turkey has violated article 2 on account of the failure of the authorities to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the applicants’ relatives.

    The court was unable to find involvement of the agents of the State in the disappearance. Nevertheless, it found that the persons have disappeared in life-threatening circumstances and ruled that the national authorities were under an obligation to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances of the disappearances.

    According to the court, though, the investigation carried out by Turkey was seriously deficient and inadequate.

    In addition, the ECtHR said that Turkey has violated article 13 of the convention because the applicants were denied an effective remedy in respect of the disappearance of their relatives, including a claim for compensation.

    via Turkey in breach of human rights during military operation | New Europe.

  • The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent

    The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent

    Erdogan and his generals

    The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent

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    IMAGINE a country with NATO’s second-largest army that counts Iraq, Iran and Syria as neighbours and is encircled by the Aegean, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean—but has nobody to command its navy. Just such a situation looms in Turkey after this week’s resignation of Admiral Nusret Guner, the number two in the navy who was expected to take over when its incumbent head steps down in August. There are no other qualified candidates, not least because more than half of Turkey’s admirals are in jail, along with hundreds of generals and other officers (both serving and retired), all on charges of plotting to oust Turkey’s mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) government.

    Admiral Guner’s resignation came after prosecutors claimed that 75 naval officers being tried for allegedly running a sex-for-secrets ring had planted a spy camera in his teenaged daughter’s bedroom. In an emotional speech the admiral said he believed in his colleagues’ innocence.

    The series of cases known as Ergenekon has left Turkey’s once omnipotent armed forces weak and divided. At last count one in five Turkish generals, including Ilker Basbug, a former chief of the general staff, was behind bars. This ought to be a triumph for Turkish democracy. But the trials are dogged by claims of spiced-up evidence and other discrepancies.

    The families of over 250 defendants given long prison terms in September 2012 in another alleged coup plot, Sledgehammer, are taking their case to the UN Human Rights Council. They insist the evidence was doctored. Independent forensic experts back their claims. Jared Genser, a lawyer based in Washington, DC, who has worked for such luminaries as Vaclav Havel and Desmond Tutu, says he agreed to act for the Sledgehammer defendants because he “firmly believes” in their innocence and because the evidence against them “was demonstrably forged”.

    Some point fingers at a powerful Muslim group led by Fethullah Gulen, a moderate Turkish cleric living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. The generals hounded the Gulenists after they ejected Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997. The Gulenists have made a comeback under AK and are said to have infiltrated the police and judiciary.

    Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, shares some doubts, even though he has cut down the generals’ influence during his decade in power. “These operations against the army are affecting morale. There are 400 serving and retired officers in jail. At this rate we will have no officers left to appoint to command positions,” he complained in a recent interview. As clashes with the Kurdish separatist PKK continue despite new peace talks and the conflict in Syria threatens to spill over the border, Mr Erdogan is right to be worried.

    Yet even as the prime minister seeks to distance himself from the Ergenekon case, some claim that he has struck a cosy alliance with the army. The chief of the general staff, Necdet Ozel, who owes his rise to the resignation in 2011 of his predecessor in protest at Ergenekon, is fiercely loyal. Mr Erdogan rushed to his defence in December 2011 after the Turkish air force had rained bombs on Kurdish civilians who were apparently mistaken for PKK rebels as they slipped into Turkey from Iraq. Some 34 Kurds, mostly teenagers, died. A parliamentary commission investigating the affair has run into claims of a cover-up. Not a single head has rolled.

    It may be that the still-popular Mr Erdogan feels that the army is fully under his control. The National Security Council through which the generals used to bark orders to nominally civilian governments has been reduced to a symbolic role. After constitutional reforms were approved in a 2010 referendum, soldiers began to be tried in civilian courts. “Erdogan sees the army as his boys,” comments Henri Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

    Yet for all their recent setbacks the generals still retain considerable sway. The defence budget remains largely immune to civilian oversight. The chief of the general staff is not subordinate to the minister of defence. And an internal service law that allows the army to intervene in politics remains in place.

    Indeed, the idea that some officers may have been conspiring to topple the AK government is not far-fetched. In 2007 the army tried unsuccessfully to stop Abdullah Gul, a former foreign minister, from becoming Turkey’s president because his wife wears the Islamic headscarf. In 2008 the generals egged on the constitutional court to ban AK on flimsily documented charges that it was seeking to impose sharia law. In the event the case was dismissed by a single vote. As for Ergenekon, “even in the absence of tampered evidence, there is sufficient proof of coup plotting to send scores of generals to jail,” argues Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human-rights lawyer who has studied the case.

    Turkey’s army has overthrown no fewer than four governments since 1960. The bloodiest coup came in 1980, when 50 people were executed, 500,000 were arrested and many hundreds died in jail. Yet millions of Turks, who have long revered the armed forces as custodians of Ataturk’s secular legacy, cheered the coup. Its leaders are now at last facing trial; opinions are belatedly shifting amid gruesome revelations of the army’s misdeeds. A recent poll suggests that, for the first time, the presidency has supplanted the army as the country’s most popular institution. And a report by the Platform for Soldiers’ Rights, an advocacy group, detailing abuse of conscripts, has dealt a further blow. Some 934 soldiers are said to have committed suicide over the past decade, surpassing the number killed while fighting the PKK. Were the conscripts killed by their superiors? Their parents want to know.

    From the print edition: Europe

  • NGO Letter to Obama: Concern over Turkey’s Actions

    NGO Letter to Obama: Concern over Turkey’s Actions

    In a letter released today to President Obama, Foreign Policy Initiative, the Project on Middle East Democracy, Freedom House, and Reporters Without Borders expressed their concern over apparent stalled progress and regression in “crucial areas.” The letter draws attention to the deteriorating situation for journalists and members of the press in Turkey, as well as concerns over Kurdish rights, freedom of expression, and the position of women in the government and labor force.

    “Hundreds of military officers, as well as various scholars and journalists, have been arrested and charged through trials dogged by allegations of fabricated evidence used by the prosecution,” the letter says. “Turkey, once a leader in the region on the role of women in society, has alarmingly few women in high level government positions and professions, and has seen a steady decline in women’s participation in the labor force,” it adds.

    The organizations urge President Obama “to express publicly and privately America’s concerns about Turkey’s backsliding, and to direct diplomatic efforts toward ensuring that Turkey resumes a course designed to consolidate democracy and the rule of law.” Given the tenuous situation in the region due primarily to events in Syria, the U.S.-Turkey relationship “needs to be based on our shared values, not just shared strategic interests,” and “rule of law and political freedoms [must be] a priority in your engagements with Prime Minister Erdogan.”

    via NGO Letter to Obama: Concern over Turkey’s Actions | Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

  • Turkey: Credibility Depends on Rights at Home | Human Rights Watch

    Turkey: Credibility Depends on Rights at Home | Human Rights Watch

    (Istanbul) ­– Turkey’s international credibility as a rising regional power will be compromised as long as it imprisons journalists, Kurdish political activists, and other government critics, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012.

    Since winning a third term with a strong showing of 50 percent of the vote in the June 12 general election, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government has taken increasing steps to abridge rights at home, Human Rights Watch said. It has restricted freedom of expression, association, and assembly with laws that allow authorities to jail its critics for many months or years while they stand trial for alleged terrorism offenses on the basis of flimsy evidence.

    “The Turkish government’s jailing of journalists and non-violent political activists undermines its democratic credentials in the region,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to end the clampdown and reform its terrorism laws.”

    In its 676-page report, Human Rights Watch assessed progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries, including popular uprisings in the Arab world that few would have imagined. Given the violent forces resisting the “Arab Spring,” the international community has an important role to play in assisting the birth of rights-respecting democracies in the region, Human Rights Watch said in the report.

    Human Rights Watch also highlighted the endemic violence against women in Turkey, police violence and use of force, moves to combat impunity for human rights violations, and international pressure on Turkey over its human rights record.

    The government has pledged to rewrite the constitution to further human rights. But the intensified clampdown centering on officials of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, BDP), but also including other critics of the government, threatens that process, Human Rights Watch said.

    Thousands of people ­– including party activists, elected serving mayors, lawyers, journalists, several human rights defenders, and an academic – are on trial. Many of them are in prolonged pre-trial detention. They are accused of links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) and the Kurdistan Communities Union (Koma Ciwakên Kurdistan, KCK), which the authorities claim is the PKK’s urban wing.

    An increasing number of journalists and editors were arrested during 2011. On December 24, 36 journalists with the pro-Kurdish press were imprisoned on terrorism charges in the context of the broader clampdown on Kurdish political activity. In March, several other journalists including Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener were imprisoned on terrorism charges for alleged links with coup plots against the government. The evidence presented against Şık and Şener was writings that do not incite violence.

    The conflict with the PKK in Turkey escalated during 2011, with a rising number of civilian casualties in the second half of the year. PKK-related attacks killed and injured civilians in several cities. On December 28, Turkish air force jets bombed and killed 34 Kurdish villagers, 19 of them children, in Şırnak province near the Iraq border. An investigation into the lethal airstrike is under way.

    Human Rights Watch called for the full and impartial investigation into all civilian deaths and said that those responsible for unlawful killings should be brought to justice.

    “Turkey seeks to play a role in advocating democratic reforms in the region, but it needs to accompany its regional outreach with democratic reform at home,” Sinclair-Webb said.

    via Turkey: Credibility Depends on Rights at Home | Human Rights Watch.

  • THE DECLINE OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

    THE DECLINE OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

    Tülin Daloğlu


    On February 16, Turkey’s largest media company, the Dogan Media Group, was

    fined nearly $500 million for an alleged late tax payment. Tax laws are complicated,

    and the exact circumstances of the matter are unclear. The troubling point is that this

    follows on five months of public bullying of the Dogan group by Turkish Prime

    Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since September, he has repeatedly asked his

    followers to boycott DMG’s newspapers. The tax investigation into the Dogan

    group, moreover, began only a few weeks after the opening of a court case to close the

    governing AKP. Erdogan argues that the tax case is a matter not of press freedom

    but of tax evasion, yet the fine can hardly be defended as “business as usual.”

    Turkey Analyst, 27 February 2008 7

    Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 23:18:34 -0800
    From: tdaloglu@yahoo.com

    BACKGROUND: What tipped Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan against Aydin Dogan, the owner of the Dogan Media Group (DMG), was its coverage of a scandalous corruption case. In early September 2008, a state court in Frankfurt, Germany, began hearing a case alleging that Deniz Feneri, a charity formed and supported by Turks living in Europe to aid the poor, had embezzled 18million Euros out of the 41 million Euros collected – and Dogan media had become the first to break the news in Turkey.(See 26 September 2008 issue of the Turkey Analyst)

    On Sept. 7, 2008, Erdogan angrily lashed out at DMG, saying that “nobody can throw the mud of corruption on AKP. The ones who throw that mud, will be drowned in that mud.” He called on his supporters to boycott DMG’s newspapers, and claimed that the DMG’s reports were lies. But on Sept.17, the German court convicted all three defendants – Mehmet Gürhan, Mehmet Taskan and Firdevsi Ermis – finalizing the largest charity fraud case in Germany. Although the indictment did not detail where or how the misused

    money had been spent, Ermis said in her testimony their charity’s aim was to support the AKP and that the board members all had close ties to Turkey’s government. The verdict implicated individuals close to Erdogan, such as his appointee to head the Radio and

    Television High Commission.

    In the meantime, Erdogan argued that DMG pushed such allegations against him and his party because DMG’s owner, Aydin Dogan, had failed to receive an alteration of a license to convert his Istanbul Hilton property into a residential compound, and because the Radio and Television High Board had not approved a land frequency for his CNN Türk television.

    Erdogan accused Dogan of seeking favors in his business deals, trying to benefit from his position as a media owner. And Erdogan publicly threatened him: “There must certainly be

    something underneath this, something you’re not telling. I know what it is…I will be in Istanbul for conventions on [Sept. 13-14, 2008]. If you tell it, you will. If not, I will say it. Let me warn you.” Neither Erdogan nor Dogan have said a word about it since then. But Dogan’s tax fine followed. DMG’s Executive Committee Vice President, Soner Gedik, said the company will appeal the decision, and said that until it is finalized – which could take up to seven years – the company is not obligated to pay.

    But the scandal is only a part of Prime Minister Erdogan’s attacks on the Turkish media. Indeed, he often complains about mistakes made by the press. Erdogan’s office recently cancelled the accreditation of seven Turkish journalists, saying they failed to “implement the rules of media ethics.” One of them, Ali Ekber Erturk of Aksam daily, however, discovered that the Prime Ministry recently approved a “permanent press card” for Mehmet Gürhan, who had received a guilty sentence in Germany on charges related to the Deniz Feneri case, and who was sentenced to almost six years in prison. For everyone else,

    however, the law maintains that an individual seeking a permanent press card should have no record of convictions.

    Furthermore, Erdogan roared in anger as the daily Aksam ran a front-page article on December 20, 2008, criticizing the government’s support for the coal industry, its impact on the quality of air and human health. The paper took attention that consumption of natural gas fell by 35 percent after an 80 percent price hike. “Either you close your newspaper or you stop publishing lies,” Erdogan demanded. But the news was accurate. (Aksam is owned by Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, another business tycoon).

    Erdogan appears to believe that there is an ulterior motive behind almost every bit of news reporting. Recently, he was troubled about coverage of school conditions, especially in Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions, where the winter weather is harsh. “They find a school in the east or southeast,” Erdogan said last December; “in that school, the stove is not burning. If you are an honest media…in reporting on it, you should have called the related minister: ‘Mr. Minister, there is such a problem, we wanted to inform you.’ If that

    trouble isn’t solved, then you can make a news story on it.” Sedat Ergin, Executive Editor of DMG-owned Milliyet daily, pointedly wrote that the Prime Minister aims “to take control of the decision of what constitutes news out of the hands of the newsrooms [and give it] to the ruling party. It would not be unfair to define this as an official censorship policy.”

    The DMG controversy also follows the murky conditions under which another large media

    holding, the Sabah/ATV group, changed hands last year. (See June 4, 2008, issue of the

    Turkey Analyst)

    After having been taken over by the state’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, it was sold in

    a single-bidder auction, and in a deal financed by two state banks and a Qatari fund, to a corporation whose media wing is headed by Erdogan’s son-in-law. In this context, Erdogan’s refusal to tolerate any criticism by anyone he regards as “the opposition”

    raises doubts regarding the DMG’s alleged tax fraud. Furthermore, it raises concerns regarding the arrests of numerous journalists and media owners in connection with the Ergenekon case, involving the investigation into an alleged conspiracy to topple the government (See January 16 issue of the Turkey Analyst).

    More specifically, it puts into question the fairness of the charges connecting them to the alleged terrorist organization whose aim is to bring down the Turkish government. For example, on January 23, security forces arrested Mustafa Ozbek, chairman of the Turkish Metal Workers’ Union and honorary president of Avrasya TV (ART) on suspicions that he funded the Ergenekon organization. Broadcasting has been halted at the television station for hours at a time, and the Union’s financial records going back five years have reportedly been seized.

    IMPLICATIONS: An atmosphere of fear and intimidation has been spreading among Turkish journalists and thinkers. “A journalist who works at a media organization that

    goes through a police investigation always feels under pressure,” as said Yilmaz Polat,

    ART’s Washington correspondent. He is giving a voice to the fears shared by numerous

    journalists who work for DMG or other outlets that do not toe the AKP’s line.

    Journalists do not practice their craft to become wealthy; most of them do not make much money. If they feel intimidated, they may choose to stay on the safe side in an intimidating environment – and the precedent would be set. After all, the government is currently going after Turkey’s largest media group and its owner – who pays 11

    percent of Istanbul’s tax income.

    The growing pressure on Turkish media freedom has not gone unnoticed. In a written statement on February 20, David Dadge, Director of the International Press Institute and the South East Europe Media Organization stated that “the timing and unprecedented size of this tax fine raise serious concerns that the authorities are changing their approach from rhetoric to using the state apparatus to harass the media.” IPI’s National Committee in Turkey also argues that “this shows that the aim is not to punish the tax irregularity, but

    to liquidate the largest media group in the country.”

    Deniz Baykal,leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, said the fine

    “represents a crisis of the democratic regime itself.” Erdogan refers to Baykal and DMG as “strongly partisan media, equally partisan political party.”

    CONCLUSIONS: Erdogan used to defend his Islamist base, saying that these people did not come from the sky, but were loyal citizens like everyone else. Conversely, then, he must understand that Turkish journalists are not coming from anywhere else, either. Erdogan’s suggestion that newspapers should be closed down is nothing but a chilling idea. Yet he seems to be using his power in that direction. But Turkey can claim to be a democracy only as long as it has a free media, free even to make mistakes. If there is

    enough dynamism and abundance, those mistakes will be corrected.

    The state’s harassment of journalism is reaching troubling levels, sharply dividing the population and intensifying perceptions of “the other.” Prime Minister Erdogan has sued more people than any other Turkish Prime Minister in history. In fact, aside from suing opponents like opposition leaders Baykal of the CHP and Devlet Bahçeli of the

    Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), he has also sued over 70 journalists – and on several occasions, sued the same journalist repeatedly, demanding compensation for alleged offenses. Erdogan’s aggressive rhetoric in fact promises not conciliation and compromise, but polarization and division in society.

    Aydin Dogan certainly should not be immune to criticism. In fact, many believe he has abused his power as a media executive – at times weighing in with support for various players in political scene – to benefit his other businesses or to secure government bids for his new business projects. As Fatih Altayli, executive editor of Haberturk, observes, Dogan is hardly a model for business ethics. In short, the issue is not whether Dogan loses his business or is being pushed to downsize. But if he does, how that happens will matter. It will set a precedent for the evolution of Turkish media freedom, and with that its European prospects.

    AUTHOR’S BIO: Tulin Daloglu is the Chief Washington Correspondent of Habertürk,

    a television news channel and a forthcoming daily paper.(Habertürk is not affiliated with DMG)
  • Turkey has trouble facing up to its past

    Turkey has trouble facing up to its past

    Hanim Tosun last saw her husband Fehmi in 1995 as he was being dragged into a car outside their home by men in civilian clothes who she is convinced were government agents.
    Foto: AP
    Hanim Tosun’s husband allegedly disappeared under police custody and she last saw him in 1995 as suspected state agents in civilian clothes dragged him into a car outside their home.
    His disappearance is among hundreds of old allegations of state-linked abductions and murders in a country that – even as it seeks entry into Europe’s club of democracies – seems unable or unwilling to fully confront its history of authoritarianism.
    Schlagworte
    Turkey abductions murders disappearance history authoritarian government

    The culprits in these cases will probably never be identified. Back then, investigations were few and convictions fewer, and now there is little appetite to delve into the ugly past.

    Turkey has curbed the worst excesses of its security forces, with the help of Western-style reforms and a drop in combat with Kurdish rebels and other militants. But authorities still deny official involvement in 1990s-era „disappearances“ or summary executions of Kurds and leftists allegedly taken into government custody – who are estimated to number 800 by one Turkish rights group.
    Some families of the disappeared still are pursuing the cases, but they are a minority since challenging the Turkish state can lead to prosecution and jail time.
    „This cause will never end for me,“ said Hanim Tosun, whose husband had spent three years in prison for links to the Kurdish rebel group PKK before his abduction. „If this is a state run by the rule of law, then they should return the body.“
    Last month, she attended a forum on the missing held by the Human Rights Association, a Turkish nongovernment organization. Tosun belonged to the Saturday Mothers, a group that gathered weekly holding up photos of the missing in protests similar to those held by relatives of those who vanished in the so-called Dirty War in Argentina in the 1970s and ’80s.
    The Turkish group ended rallies in 1999 after a police crackdown. The demonstrators, who were sometimes arrested, claimed the publicity contributed to a virtual end to such disappearances.
    The European Union says Turkey, which has a history of military coups, must improve its human rights record if it wants to be a member. Progress has been notable if uneven. Turkey is torn between the reformist push for transparency and an entrenched tendency to override the rights of individuals who are seen as threats to the state.
    Elements of this conflict are evident in Turkey’s current political divide, in which the top court, a bastion of the secular elite, is considering whether to ban the Islam-oriented ruling party, which has a strong majority in parliament. Both sides in the dispute claim to be champions of the democratic ideals enshrined in the constitution, itself the byproduct of a 1980 military coup.
    GRAFIK
    .
    Two actors painted in blue enact a scene of a abduction in front of the European Parliament in Belgium. Amnesty International was organizing the action to mark the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

    The U.S. State Department said in March that there were no reports of „politically motivated disappearances“ in Turkey last year, but cited other problems including torture and some instances of unlawful killings by security forces. The European Commission has said „legislative safeguards“ were improving Turkey’s human rights situation, citing a „downward trend“ in torture cases. „Impunity remains an area of concern,“ a European report said. „There is a lack of prompt, impartial and independent investigations into allegations of human rights violations by members of security forces.“

    Turkey has said state-sponsored abuses were not systematic at the height of the guerrilla war in the 1990s, despite evidence of atrocities by both sides. Officials suggested that some who disappeared did so by choice as members of underground groups and that others perished in internal conflicts between rival rebel factions.
    „Authorities are doing everything they can to find people who were reported missing by their families,“ a senior Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
    In some cases, the government has agreed to pay settlements and acknowledged inadequate inquiries. Families that took these deals had mixed feelings, pleased with winning a concession but aware that the government considered the cases closed to deeper inquiry.
    The family of Fehmi Tosun went to the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are binding on Turkey. The court withdrew from the case after Turkey agreed to pay Euro 40,000 in a so-called friendly settlement.
    Tosun was grabbed around 7 p.m. on Oct. 19, 1995, and his wife provided the license plate of the car to police. She was alerted to the abduction by one of her children, and cited witnesses as saying the kidnappers had walkie talkies.
    „I went out to the balcony and saw their shadows,“ Hanim Tosun said. „Then I saw a white car. My husband was being dragged into it. He raised his head and called for help, saying that they were kidnapping him and going to kill him. … He was trying not to get in the car. One of the men had a gun. My son ran downstairs. I did the same too, but I was slower.“
    The family of Hasan Ocak, a leftist with alleged links to illegal groups, last spoke to him on March 21, 1995, when he telephoned to say he would bring fish home for dinner. His body, with signs of torture, was found in a cemetery two months later.
    Ocak disappeared during a period of deadly clashes between police and protesters in Istanbul. Detainees later said they had seen him at the anti-terrorist branch of the security forces in the city. Ocak had previously been detained and tortured, according to his family.
    In 2004, Europe’s human rights court said Ocak’s family should be paid Euro 25,000 because Turkey had failed to adequately investigate his death, but added it could not conclude that the state had killed him. Like Tosun’s family, Ocak’s family took the money, but still argued that justice still had not been achieved.
    „What we wanted was prosecution of those who were really responsible,“ said Ocak’s sister, Maside. She said the ruling amounted to a political „gesture“ to a candidate for EU membership.
    „It is fortunate that we have a grave to visit because other people don’t even have that,“ said Maside.
    –––
    Associated Press writers C. Onur Ant in Istanbul and Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara contributed to this report.__._,_.___