wr2014_web_0

WORLD REPORT 2014crime of “making terrorist propaganda” (article 7/2, Anti-Terror Law; article220/8, Turkish Penal Code).Reforms undertaken in 2013 did not remedy the situation of the thousands ofprosecutions of individuals on charges of “membership of an armed organization”(article 314, Turkish Penal Code) for activities amounting to nonviolentpolitical association. Demonstrating the government’s widespread misuse ofterrorism laws to prosecute and incarcerate individuals, hundreds of Kurdishpolitical activists, elected mayors, parliamentarians, officials of the Peace andDemocracy Party, students, and lawyers have been in prison for long periods, insome cases for over four-and-a-half years, during their trials for associationwith the KCK. The human rights defender Muharrem Erbey has spent four yearsin prison on these charges.There was a spate of trials in 2013 against public figures for insulting the religioussentiments of a part of the population, similar to the prosecutions of individualsfor “insulting Turkishness” common in the recent past. Pianist Fazil Sayreceived a 10-month suspended prison sentence for sending tweets that pokedfun at believers and Islam. An Istanbul court in April, and again during a retrialin September, determined the tweets had “insulted the religious sentiments ofa part of the population” (under article 216/3 of the Turkish Penal Code). Thecase was at appeal at time of writing. Lawyer Canan Arın stood trial under thesame charge, plus the charge of insulting the president, for her December 2011comments at an Antalya Bar Association seminar on women’s rights mentioningthe practice of early marriage in Islam and a reference to the fact that PresidentAbdullah Gül’s bride had been a child. In May, the trial was suspended on conditionthat Arın does not commit a similar offense for the next three years.Police Ill-treatment and Excessive Use of ForceThe Taksim Gezi Park protests saw police repeatedly disperse protesters, mostof whom were entirely peaceful, with water cannons, rubber bullets, and teargas,resorting to excessive use of force and beatings of detainees. Police alsounlawfully shot teargas canisters directly at protesters, leading to scores of protestersreceiving serious head injuries as a direct result. The Turkish MedicalAssociation reported that 11 people lost an eye in this way. Fourteen-year-oldBerkin Elvan was hit by a teargas canister in June and remained in a critical con-502