Representatives from three major international human rights organizations have called on American and European officials to increase pressure on the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to stop jailing journalists and human rights activists.

“They have a lot of influence over Turkey,” said Margaux Ewen, Advocacy and Communications Officer from Reporters Without Borders, adding that there is “no excuse” for the U.S. and E.U. not to not to put more pressure on the Turkish government to halt repression of press freedom and human rights violations.

Ewen spoke at a news conference in New York on Tuesday, June 28, that was called by her organization and others to denounce the June 21 arrest of three prominent human rights activists who are also journalists.

The three, Ahmet Nesin, a journalist, Erol Önderoglu, a 20-year human rights representative for Reporters Without Borders, and forensic physician Sebnem Korur Financi, President of Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation, were charged with disseminating “terrorist propaganda” because they had each taken a turn guest-editing a pro-Kurdish newspaper, Özgür Gündem, which has been targeted by Turkish authorities. The paper has been symbolically “guest-edited” by a number of Turkish journalists as a show of solidarity because its staff is frequently harassed and the paper periodically shut down by Turkish officials.

Turkish authorities released two of the prisoners, Önderoglu and Financi, on June 30 after holding them since June 20. They are scheduled for a Nov. 8 trial date. Nesin was still behind bars. They each face up to 14½ years in jail if convicted of the charges, which include “incitement to terrorism” and “praising terrorism.”

Senem Doganoglu, of the Human Rights Foundation in Turkey, said that during their respective one-day tenures as guest editor, the journalists had included news about Kurdish issues such as the curfew on Nusaybin, the most recent of eight Kurdish cities in Southeast Turkey to have been invaded and largely destroyed by Turkish forces in response to Kurdish demands for self-rule.

The fact that journalists can be prosecuted for merely doing their jobs sets a dangerous precedent and is inconsistent with a political system that claims to be a democracy, the speakers said, calling for their unconditional release.

They said that the arrest of three such prominent figures was meant to be a warning sign to other Turkish activists that “no one is safe.” And they said the crack-down on press freedom and human rights was inseparable from Erdogan’s incursions into Kurdish towns in southeastern Turkey.

“The Turkish state has ramped up a campaign against all those criticizing its harsh military tactics in the southeast,” said Christine Mehta, a researcher with the investigations unit of Physicians for Human Rights. Those incursions have included “24-hour sieges, called curfews, and absolute impunity for reported human rights violations by state security forces,” she said.

To prevent reporting on its incursions in the Kurdish region, “the government of Turkey has resorted to the same tactics used by the world’s worst jailers of writers and journalists like China,” said Sara Edkins, deputy director for Communications at PEN America, the international organization that promotes freedom of expression by authors and journalists around the world.

Turkey is using “sprawling anti-terror laws to repress its detractors” and engaging in “harassment, intimidation and arrest of supporters, friends and family of all those who express dissent,” Edkins said. She called on the country to “depoliticize the judiciary” and support the “universal right to free expression.”

Mehta, Ewens and Edkins all said they felt the U.S. and E.U. could do more to pressure Turkey.

“I think there has to be a serious shift in the way that the U.S. and E.U. are currently treating the Turkish state,” Mehta said. The U.S. and key E.U. member states “have an obligation to step up their rhetoric when it comes to human rights violations that are being committed in the southeast and the resulting crackdown on freedom of expression that is being caused in the rest of the country,” she said.

“We have seen some comments in the right direction coming out of E.U. leaders, but there is very much more that could be done,” said Edkins of PEN America.

Ewen said she is hopeful that members of the U.S. House and Senate who have committed themselves to supporting human rights in Turkey will become more vocal and take action such as attending the trials of journalists who are being persecuted.

Turkey is the 151st lowest out of 180 countries ranked in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, a decline since last year’s ranking of 149. Turkey ranked 98 in 2006. Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières, has documented 10 cases of imprisoned journalists or citizen journalists in Turkey but estimates that there are many more who have not been confirmed, according to Ewen. One report prepared by Önderoglu before his arrest, indicated that in the first three months of this year, 28 journalists and 10 news distributors, had been arrested by Turkish authorities, of which 18 were from Kurdish media.

The speakers expressed alarm at the worsening conditions in Turkey for journalists, doctors, academics, and human rights activists.

“Even to show solidarity with a pro-Kurdish paper is enough to get you arrested,” said Kurdish affairs expert Mutlu Civiroglu. “This shows how dire the situation is.”

“Turkey’s crackdown on dissent – the criminalization of journalists for reporting the truth, doctors for providing medical treatment to those in dire need, and civil society for speaking out in support of an oppressed population in the southeast – is likely to get worse before it gets better,” said Mehta, of Physicians for Human Rights. “This means the international community needs to step in and speak as loudly as possible in continued support of our colleagues in Turkey as their situation becomes increasingly precarious in the coming days.”

Mehta was part of a two-person team that conducted an investigation in May 2016 in response to allegations that Turkish forces were engaged in human rights violations in the cities of southeastern Turkey. “We found that not only is there evidence of human rights violations happening at a large scale in the southeast, but that Turkey is actively muzzling activists who are attempting to demand accountability and investigations for these crimes,” she said.

She noted that despite the Turkish government’s assertion that impartial observers would have unimpeded access to towns in the southeast, her organization was denied access to Cizre when they attempted to enter on May 4, 2016. She said the Physicians for Human Rights report would be published in September.

Forensic physician Sebnem Korur Financi is “just one of many health professionals who have come under fire by the Turkish state for doing her duty, not just to provide medical treatment to the wounded and sick, but to use her skills to document and uncover evidence of human rights violations,” Mehta said. She added that Financi, a longtime partner and friend of Physicians for Human Rights, has been a leader in the human rights movement in Turkey for more than 20 years and was an expert in uncovering cases of torture.

Similarly, Önderoglu, has observed “hundreds of trials of journalists,” written numerous reports, and been a “tireless defender” of press freedom in the 20 years he has served as the Turkish representative of Reporters Without Borders, said Ewen. She said he applied his skills to defending the speech rights of “everyone, whether Islamists, Republicans, nationalists, Kurds or leftists.”

The speakers said that the intimidation of journalists goes hand in hand with Erdogan’s growing consolidation of power.

“It’s very clear that Turkish President Erdogan’s targeting of Erol (Önderoglu) and his colleagues is symbolic,” Ewen said. “Erdogan’s government is trying to send a message to all Turkish journalists and human rights defenders that no one is safe from prosecution.” The arrests “mark a new stage” in the criminalization of human rights activism and “the continued decline in media freedom in Turkey.”

The news conference held at New York University was organized by the Research Institute on Turkey, a grassroots research cooperative based in New York City.

This post was first published at KurdishQuestion.com:

http://kurdishquestion.com/article/3261-u-s-and-e-u-must-step-up-pressure-on-turkey-over-human-rights-violations