Bericht der Menschenrechtsorganisation Amnesty International zum Umgang der türkischen Regierung mit den Gezi-Protesten, 10.6.2014 (engl. Originalfassung)
Conclusions and Recommendations
One year on from the Gezi Park protests, the government’s approach to the right to peaceful protest appears more abusive than ever. Rather than heal the wounds opened during the summer of 2013, it has continued to use abusive force to deny the right to peaceful assembly, persisted with its attempts to crush the protest movement and shown no interest in ensuring justice for police abuses. It has ushered in new laws restricting access to social media and criminalizing the provision of emergency medical care of the kind provided during the Gezi Park protests. Repeated police violence has created a minority who turn up to demonstrations expecting violence and prepared to fight back. Retrograde reforms to the High Council of the Judges and Prosecutors and targeted transfers of judges and prosecutors have further politicised the judiciary, undermining its ability to challenge government abuses and uphold fundamental rights.
After twelve years in power, the AKP government is perhaps at a cross-roads. It has earned the support of many millions after a decade of sustained economic growth and significant rises in living standards. As its success in March 2014 municipal elections shows, it remains the most popular and best organised political party by some margin. At the same time, it has faced a series of challenges to its authority over the last year, of which the Gezi Park Protests are only one. It has also found itself embroiled in corruption scandals, locked in a bitter feud with one-time supporter Fethullah Gülen and faced a public outcry over the mining disaster in Soma and its own callous response to the tragedy.
Faced with these threats to its hold on power and legacy as a reforming government, the AKP administration has a choice. It can choose to acknowledge legitimate grievances and reach out to those who have become disaffected. Or it can seek to bolster its support amongst AKP loyalists through the politics of blame and polarisation. Prime Minister Erdoğan has chosen the latter course. His default reaction to these crises has been to seek to silence or crush his critics, while accusing nefarious internal and external agents of sowing discord. The effect has been to harden latent divisions in Turkish society and badly damage the respect for human rights in the country.
The Gezi Park protests were, in large measure, fuelled by this authoritarian tendency and those that took part in them are now feeling the very pressures they were railing against one year ago. It is worrying, and should be especially worrying for the ruling AKP, that a generation of politically active youth is growing up accustomed to the politics of conflict and, when they take to street, the assumption that violence awaits them.
It is not too late to change course, though this requires a significant change in the government’s attitude to criticism. Respecting the right to freedom of assembly, staying the prosecution of peaceful protest organisers and participants and ensuring accountability for police abuses would be a good place to start.
Den vollständigen Bericht finden Sie hier.