Turkey: Officials Try to Shut Down Rights Group

[Kornelij Glas]

Turkey: Officials Try to Shut Down Rights Group

(New York, September 27, 2005)—The threat by Turkish officials

to close down an organization defending lesbian, gay, bisexual and

transgender people's rights violates basic freedoms of association

and expression, Human Rights Watch said today.

Selahattin Ekremoglu, deputy governor of the Turkish capital

Ankara, on September 15 wrote a letter to the gay and lesbian

group Kaos GL that said a court procedure had been opened to

dissolve the organization. He claimed that the name and

regulations of the group violated a provision in the Turkish Civil

Code that forbids "establishing any organization that is against the

laws and principles of morality."

"Turkey has a long record of suppressing civil society and

harassing human rights defenders," said Scott Long, director of the

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at Human

Rights Watch. "This dangerous new move shows that old habits

die hard, and calls into question recent advances in rights

protections."

Kaos GL Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity

Organization is an 11-year-old, Ankara-based collective that

operates a drop-in center providing social and cultural support to

lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The group also

advocates for measures to end discrimination and violence, and it

publishes a magazine that has been registered as a legal publication

since 1999.

On July 15, Kaos GL applied to the Ministry of Interior for

recognition as a nongovernmental organization. The ministry

initially approved the request, but the Ankara deputy governor,

who reports to the Interior Ministry, has now responded by

launching a lawsuit to close the organization.

"Sweeping references to ‘morality' in the Turkish Civil Code still

offer a pretext for discrimination and abuse of basic rights," said

Long. "Equal protection doesn't include exclusion for sexual

orientation or gender identity."

Turkey has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights, which protects freedoms of expression and

association and also forbids discrimination on the basis of sex. In

1994 the U.N. Human Rights Committee held that "sexual

orientation" was a status protected against discrimination by the

treaty.

Turkey has also ratified the European Convention on Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which affirms freedoms of

expression and association. The European Court of Human Rights

has condemned discrimination based on sexual orientation and

gender identity in a succession of cases. (See

http://hrw.org/lgbt/jurisprudence.htm).

In a briefing paper on Turkey's progress toward admission to the

European Union, Human Rights Watch last year said that, "The

government continues to ease the restrictions on associations by

small degrees." However, the paper also noted, "for organizations

viewed with suspicion by the authorities, including human rights

organizations, day-to-day life feels like life under a police state:

annual meetings and press conferences are often monitored by

plain clothes police officers toting video cameras, while local

prosecutors maintain a hail of litigation."

To view this document on the Human Rights Watch web site,

please visit: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/27/turkey11784.htm

[beatnik]

Турция xочет и рыбку сьесть, и в ЕС влезть... - как бы не поперxнулись :brows:

[ZepStam]

то есть и рыбку съесть и нах сесть, да еще и удовольствие получить? так переводится эта статья? :hm: