PRO ASYL Presseerklärung | Press Release
March 10, 1999
Trade unionist tortured to death in Turkey
PRO ASYL warns against deportations
Forcibly returned from Germany also tortured
- Gewerkschafter in der Türkei zu Tode gefoltert
PRO ASYL warnt vor Abschiebungen
Aus Deutschland Abgeschobener ebenfalls gefoltert - Trade unionist tortured to death in Turkey
PRO ASYL warns against deportations
Forcibly returned from Germany also tortured
INFO
(partially translated)
This is a machine translation by the IBM-supported PERSONAL TRANSLATOR plus. It is slightly edited by combining its results with the translation of SYSTRAN. But you should not rely on it. If you want to use a translated text append or reference the original text.
After individuals have come to death in detention of the Turkish police repeatedly, the Nation-wide Human Rights Organisation for Refugees PRO ASYL warns insistently against deportations of Kurds to Turkey.
During a press conference on March 8th, 1999 lawyers who belong to the Turkish Human Rights Organisation IHD or to the Law Society Istanbul have informed, that the education-assigned of the dockers Trade Union LIMTERIS and the editor of the newspaper DAYANISMA, Süleyman Yeter, on March 7th, 1999 has been tortured and killed during the examination by the terrorism department of the Police Headquarters Istanbul. Contrary to the assertion of the responsible public prosecutor two lawyers would have found signs of torture at the body of the dead man. According to a report of the newspaper Özgür Politika the lawyer Keles Öztürk involved in the post-mortem examination said, that Yeter has already been tortured heavily during an earlier arrest in February 1997. The torturers had been taken to the Criminal Court in Istanbul . In this procedure Yeter would have had now on April 9th to identify his torturers. According to information of IHD alone in 1998 eight individuals came to death by torture in Turkey .
In the meantime PRO ASYL has been informed of the case of an rejected Kurdish asylum-seeker, who after his deportation from Germany in 1996 has been handed over to the Department for Counter Terrorism upon arrival at the airport. According to his statements he was tortured heavily and repeatedly during his 85-day detention. After this he was sent to East Turkey for doing his military service. From fear of renewed detention he escaped in 1998 anew into the Federal Republic. On February 17th, 1999 the Federal Office of the Recognition of Foreign Refugees granted to him the so-called „Small Asylum“.
PRO ASYL points out to the German Ministers of the Interior in front of this background, that torture according to corresponding assessment of many human rights organisations in Turkey is used to a large extent and systematically. Therefore the Turkey isn’t a calculable partner for agreements, in which procedures of a state under the rule of law and renunciation of torture would be assured, as proposed by the Conference of the Ministers of the Interior.
