English pages
I have updated the Background to the Legal System as of January 2007. Since the original was written before the wide ranging reforms between 2002 and 2005 it now contains a comparison of provisions (many of them in the original wording) regarding freedom of expression, political trials and torture and impunity.
The report on The PKK was written for The International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) in Geneva and looked into possibilities of human rights groups to influence armed oppositional groups if they violate human rights. It may even be better to put the whole affair a bit more in context, i.e. start with the History of the Kurdish Uprising.
At a very late stage I found a report entitled NGOs in Turkey, written in 1999. It looks like a translation of the German page called Menschenrechtsbewegung der Türkei. I decided to make this text available for a wider audience. Another text that lawyer Sezgin Tanrıkulu wrote in 2001 for a journal in the USA and that I translated first in full length and later reduced to one half, but that probably was never published had the title The Kurdish Question and State of Emergency in Decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.
Reports of Amnesty International
As kind of a historic project, I have scanned the Urgent Actions between 1986 to 1990 and made them ready for download.
There are number of texts written during my time in the International Secretariat of Amnesty International as the researcher being responsible for Turkey and a few other countries. These are a kind of "historic" texts. One of them was a "first" on Extra-judicial Executions and the other one a "first" on Prosecution of Religious Activists. Two further reports (with pictures) were
- File on Torture (September 1987) and
- Turkey Briefing Paper (November 1988)
I've made images of them and presented them as an article on Illustrated Reports of Amnesty International.
Apart from these reports there are two reports on specific trials that started during military rule (1980-1983) and are partly still continuing. These trials against members of the militant organizations called Devrimci Yol (Revolutionary Path) and Devrimci Sol (Revolutionary Left) focus on fair trial, torture and the death penalty.
At a very late stage I retrieved a report finished shortly before I started to work for AI. The report of October 1996 was entitled UNFAIR TRIAL OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN TURKEY, but the title should better be Fair trial of civilians at military courts in Turkey after the military coup of September 1980. At an even later stage I discovered a document from 26 May 1982 entitled Statements alleging torture in Turkey. The 50 page report included details on some deaths in custody that may be interesting 30 years later.
Wikipedia
I have made some contributions to the English Wikipedia. Sometimes it is better, to make a draft first and then publish. One page that needs improvement (December 2008) and for which I shall make a draft can be called Revolutionary Path.
As of August 2009 the text at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Turkey is partly false, but more importantly shows that there is no page on
Recent Reports
In November 2014 I made an attempt to present the subject of Executions in the ranks of the PKK by reviewing different sources in English, German and Turkish.
In April 2012 I looked at the judgements of the ECHR on the right to life in Turkey passed between 2002 and 2010.
In October 2009 I drafted the page Human Rights in Turkey on the English Wikipedia. Since my draft has many links to useful documents I use it for a Link Collection on Human Rights in Turkey.
In August 2009 excerpts from the Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement by Sharon Shalev were chosen for later quotes in German. In June 2011 a report on Conditions in İmralı Prison was drafted in preparation of a wider study on the condition of prisoners sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for political offences was compiled.
In March 2008 I compiled Statistics on judgments of the ECHR on Turkey.
Recently (July 2007) I prepared a draft report called Reflections on judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on Turkey. It can be found under http://ob.nubati.net/en/echr_tur.php
In September 2007 I compiled reports on the Right to Life with subheadings of "Disappearances", "Death in Custody" and "Killings of Civilians by Armed Groups".
At the end of 2007 I compared remarks of international institutions to findings of national human rights organizations on Torture in Turkey seen from the inside and the outside.
New Projects
In order to get sortable lists of the judgements of the ECHR on Turkey I have to create some helpful pages first. This will be done on ECHR on Turkey since 2008
In May 2009 I started to experiment with Software for CAT (Computer Assisted Translation).