Türkiye is set to prosecute hundreds of people, mainly students, who protested the detention of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoglu in hasty, mass trials, scheduled to begin on April 18, 2015, Human Rights Watch said today.
The rushed nature and mass scale of the trials, which lack evidence of criminal wrongdoing, exemplify how Türkiye's restrictions on the right to assembly are arbitrary and incompatible with a democratic society based on the rule of law.
"Given the glaring absence of evidence, it is hard not to conclude that the intended purpose of these rushed trials is to send a warning against exercising the rights to peaceful protest or free expression," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The prosecutor should be calling for these cases to be dropped unless there is direct and substantive evidence that particular individuals committed specific crimes."
The first two hearings, set for April 18, involves 189 defendants, including many students, two journalists, and five photojournalists. They face charges including attending an unauthorized demonstration and not obeying police orders to disperse; carrying weapons or covering their faces to conceal their identity; and incitement to commit a crime. The last charge is based on social media posts.
The potential penalties range from six months to four years for the first two charges, with up to five years for incitement to commit a crime. In almost all cases the indictments lack individualized evidence that the accused engaged in anything resembling criminal activity.
The Istanbul chief prosecutor's office has announced that is total of 819 people are facing prosecution in the scope of 20 criminal investigations into protests.
Human Rights Watch reviewed nine indictments involving 650 defendants accused of protest- related offenses. One hundred and seven of them are charged only with participating in unauthorized demonstrations and failure to disperse (article 32/1 of the Law on Assemblies and Demonstrations, no. 2711).
The prosecutor's office labels the demonstrations "unauthorized" because on March 19, the Istanbul governor announced a four-day blanket ban on all protests and assemblies in Istanbul, later extended by another four days, and ending on March 26.
Despite the governor's announced ban, mass assemblies with thousands of participants took place outside the Istanbul municipality building, and students organized peaceful marches from other areas of Istanbul to join in. Moreover, 120 out of 650 people are accused of attending peaceful protests held on March 27, after the ban was lifted.
Of the 189 defendants in the hearings on April 18, 62 are accused of carrying weapons or concealing their faces to avoid being identified during a demonstration (article 33/1 of law 2911), yet the only specifics provided as evidence in the indictment in terms of carrying a weapon is an allegation that one protestor had a rock in his hand.
In reality, many people of all ages at the mass protests covered their faces to protect themselves from the effects of pepper spray and pellets the police used on several occasions as well as while dispersing them. Some people may have chosen to cover their faces in view of the restrictions on the right to protest over the past few years in Türkiye, Human Rights Watch said.
Twenty people on trial on April 18 are charged with seeking to "incite a crime" via social media posts (Turkish Penal Code article 214). These posts overwhelmingly consist of generalized calls to join people in the streets and statements against the government and not calls for violence or criminality.
Seven journalists who were reporting on the protests are being treated by the prosecutor as protesters, and the indictment says that their claim to be journalists "has not been counted" by the prosecutor's office because the police did not establish that they were present for journalistic purposes. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations outside the Istanbul municipal building over 7 days after police arrested mayor İmamoglu, together with approximately 90 municipal officials, politicians and advisers.
Video footage verified by Human Rights Watch shows that police sprayed pepper spray and deployed pepper balls at close range to disperse people and violently detained others, accusing them of ignoring announcements to disperse. Some demonstrators were later detained from their homes on the basis of police video footage showing their participation in rallies.
Istanbul courts initially ordered the pretrial detention of 278 alleged protesters, placing others under house arrest or imposing travel bans. Out of 40 pretrial detention hearing records concerning 352 people reviewed by Human Rights Watch, 30 individuals allege physical or verbal abuse by police officers. Detainees or their lawyers told judges that police had beaten, verbally insulted, or otherwise ill-treated them as they were apprehended. At least one woman detainee has complained of police ill treatment and verbal and physical sexual harassment and touching. There needs to be a prompt and effective investigation of all allegations of police ill-treatment, harassment, and excessive use of force, Human Rights Watch said.
The Interior Ministry has announced that it is conducting an inquiry into police intervention in the demonstrations.
About 230 of those in pretrial detention were released two to three weeks later, not least because there has been public pressure about the fact they are students about to take university exams.
The European Court of Human Rights has issued more than 70 judgments over 15 years against Türkiye. All of them have found disproportionate and unlawful intervention in the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, including through the prosecution of participants and the use of excessive force to disperse peaceful demonstrations.
The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers charged with overseeing the implementation of European Court judgments has strongly urged Türkiye to revise its Law on Assemblies and Demonstrations to uphold the right to peaceful assembly and bring it in line with the case law of the European Court
"Violent police dispersal of demonstrations that Turkish authorities deem unlawful is an entrenched problem requiring amending their law and practice to uphold the right to peaceful assembly," Williamson said. "Abuse of the criminal justice system to detain and charge students for peaceful protest is only the latest instance in a catalogue of cases in which e the European Court of Human Rights has found multiple rights violations."
