EU to impose political monitoring on Turkey over human rights

CAIRO – 26 April 2017: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a decision to reactivate the monitoring phase in Turkey which ended after negotiations with the European Union in 2004. The assembly attributed its decision to recent human rights violations in Turkey.

The assembly has thus put Turkey on the list of countries with flagrant problems in democracy, which also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Serbia, Russia and Ukraine.

Most analysts attributed the decision to the EU’s perspective that Turkey exploited the military coup in an attempt to get rid of its opponents.

Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Adana Talib Kutchuk described the decision as “discriminatory” against Turkey. As a result, he added, the parliamentary committee of the Council of Europe will “lose its value” in Turkish public opinion.
The presidential spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, also expressed his disapproval of the situation, and issued a statement expressing his personal wishes not to impose political monitoring by the EU in Turkey.

Human rights violations documented in Turkey in recent years include severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly in addition to the practice of torture and ill-treatment in detention, arbitrary detentions, prosecutions, dismissals, confiscations of passports and property, continued violence and serious abuses, particularly in southeast Turkey.

The rapid deterioration in human rights started in July 2016 when a State of Emergency was announced after a failed coup, allowing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to head the cabinet and rule the country by decree with weakened parliamentary and judicial oversight.