Arrest of Opposition Politicians: Turkey

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) for securing this important debate. As she said, the increasingly authoritarian policies of President Erdoğan and his Government have been dragging Turkey into further political polarisation, social turmoil and economic instability.

The main opposition party, the HDP, which is majority Kurdish, has suffered continuous harassment, arrests and imprisonment, including over 700 arrests on 15 February this year. The party’s leaders have all received lengthy prison sentences and elected MPs and local politicians have been arrested and replaced with the Government’s appointed trustees.

This authoritarian regime has had a disproportionate effect on women in the country and their legal rights have been eroded. Women face abuse and violence, often by uniformed authorities, and disappearances by the police are commonplace. Many women politicians and trade union activists have been terrorised for defending basic human rights. Non-governmental organisations, including women’s groups and human rights organisations, have been closed by the authorities in the country. The LGBT+ community has also come under threat from the authoritarian policies of President Erdoğan. The country’s justice system is systematically used to criminalise peaceful activities such as Pride events and art exhibitions. Several students and an academic are currently facing prison sentences for organising a Pride march on campus that was banned by the university.

Trade unionists are also under constant attack by the current regime in Turkey, facing both administrative and judicial harassment for carrying out legitimate trade union activities. This makes it extremely concerning that on 29 December last year, the UK Government signed a trade agreement with the Government of Turkey that contains no enforceable commitments for Turkey to respect labour rights, following the same approach as Turkey’s customs agreement with the EU. This means that it will not be possible to use the UK-Turkey agreement to stop the Government of Turkey abusing the rights of unions and workers and committing widespread human rights abuses, as they have done in an increasingly brutal manner in recent years. The UK Government must follow the new US President, Joe Biden, in taking a much firmer line against Turkey’s continued human rights and workers’ rights violations, both within and outside its own borders.

With all that in mind, will the Minister do all she can to ensure that the UK Government do not become complicit with the Turkish Government in a bid to keep the recent roll-over trade deal with Turkey? If the UK Government fail to hold Turkey to account for its human rights abuses, they will, in effect, become complicit. The UK Government must therefore do all they can to push the Turkish Government to work towards protecting fundamental minority rights in the country, and commit to suspending the UK-Turkey trade deal should the Turkish Government implement their threatened ban on the socially progressive HDP party. Finally, I call on the UK Government and the Minister to require the Government of Turkey to show respect for core International Labour Organisation conventions as a precondition of the UK-Turkey agreement being applied.