Arrest of Opposition Politicians: Turkey

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friends who have just spoken. This is an area of work that the all-party parliamentary group for Kurdistan in Turkey and Syria has been deliberating on. The connection with Kurds in Syria is important, because many of the demonstrations that the Turkish politicians have been accused of attending, and then arrested for, relate to their fight against ISIS in Syria. Over the past few weeks and months, the APPG has been interviewing politicians from Turkey, including municipal leaders and MPs. Our recommendations will hopefully be out at the end of this month, but I want to sum up a few quick points that seem to be coming out of some of those deliberations.

First of all—I will phrase this as “I”, because the APPG has not signed any of these things off; these are my interpretations of what the APPG has heard so far—I am concerned that politicians from opposition parties are routinely accused of bizarre crimes. We heard that they were accused of committing crimes before they were born, such as attending political demonstrations, or were accused of crimes because their families or relatives had done things, going against the principle of justice that states that a person should be judged for what they do, not for what their predecessors have done. Politicians have also been accused of crimes for speaking out for ethnic groups in the Parliament, so protected speech in the Parliament has disappeared.

There have also been trials of politicians from the leading party, AKP, so let us not pretend that they have all been HDP, but they are vastly, overwhelmingly HDP—something like 90% of its MPs, compared with only two AKP MPs, have been tried in the past 10 years. Traditionally in Turkey, with the ruling party’s MPs, the system was that trials were held in the local area. The recent change to trials being held in the central court in Ankara, therefore making MPs unable to provide witnesses or local representatives to those court trials in order to defend themselves, is a key difficulty in obtaining justice. We know that there have been European Court of Human Rights judgments, but they are clearly not complied with.

The removal of MPs should, in my view, be a rare circumstance. However, 154 MPs have had their immunity removed in Turkey, 54 of whom were HDP MPs, and almost 100 were from other parties. Let us remember that the CHP is not a radical loony left or loony right party, but the founding party of modern Turkey. The fact that its MPs are now being targeted makes me feel that if we do not speak up when minority MPs are targeted, we will see what happens: majority MPs from established parties start to be attacked.

Many Kurdish MPs have said that they do not demand their own state but want to be able to talk about how Kurdish representation happens. When the ambassador wrote to me, he said, “We don’t recognise Kurds in our country. We recognise only Turks.” To me that is a denial of people’s civil and cultural rights, and it is a real problem with representation. I do not want to go on for much longer, because I want to give the Minister time, but I hope that she will respond to those points and commit to reading the APPG’s report in detail when it is completed, and responding to it in writing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I do not want to challenge the proscription of the PKK, but does the Minister recognise that the European Court of Justice has twice now said that the proscription was illegal in the European sense and did not meet the requirements? So has the Belgian court. There are court cases ongoing on the issue, so it is a slightly open question—not what Turkey thinks, but what the international community thinks.

[Wendy Morton]

As I have explained, we have proscribed the PPK as a terrorist group, as have many of our international partners. If those links are proved to be accurate, we urge the HDP to distance itself entirely from the PPK and its ongoing terrorist activity.

Like others, I am deeply saddened by the news that Turkish soldiers and civilians lost their lives in Gara at the hands of the PPK. Our ambassador offered his condolences to Turkey at the time, and I reiterate them now. However, we have registered our concern at the OSCE and the Council of Europe about the large number of detentions. Those include the ongoing and lengthy detention without trial of former HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş. We maintain an ongoing dialogue with the HDP to hear its concerns, just as we do with all the main political parties.

We are also concerned by Turkey’s delayed implementation of the European Court of Human Rights judgments on the imprisonment of Demirtaş and Osman Kavala, the human rights activist. We expect Turkey, as a member of the Council of Europe, to implement those Court decisions, in line with the base values that underpin our co-operation. In accordance with that position, we have participated in Council of Europe discussions on both those cases as recently as just last week.

We support the rights of LGBTI groups in Turkey. We have encouraged Turkey to respect the rights of the LGBTI community, to allow Pride marches to go ahead unchallenged, and to discourage disparaging public statements targeting the LGBTI+ community.

The hon. Member for Enfield North and others mentioned the replacement of mayors. We, too, have concerns about the replacement of a large number of HDP mayors by state-appointed trustees in the south-east of Turkey. The Turkish Government took those decisions because they contend that those mayors were allegedly channelling funding and support to the PKK. Again, if that is proved to be the case, we condemn support for terrorism unreservedly. However, Turkey must undertake fairly, transparently and with full respect to the rule of law any legal processes against opposition politicians or legally elected representatives.

Allowing fair representation and the provision of local democracy is essential to the long-term health of Turkish society and to Turkey’s international reputation. As we all know here, a healthy opposition is a sign of functioning and flourishing democracy. Turkey must respect the views of the opposition and allow their politicians to speak freely and without fear of reprisal. We keenly encourage that Government’s renewed calls for reform in this area. We also encourage Turkey to ensure that freedom of religion and belief is upheld, as enshrined in Turkey’s constitution, and that the rights of minorities, such as the Alevi, Jewish and Christian communities, are fully observed.

We will continue the conversation about our human rights concerns with Turkey. The hon. Member for Enfield North asked whether I would raise that issue with my counterparts. I hope to visit Turkey soon—travel restrictions permitting, of course—to raise those issues with my Turkish counterparts. My ministerial colleague Lord Ahmad, who holds the human rights portfolio in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also plans to visit Turkey in the coming months.