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Why Study Foundation?
(1999)
It is commonly assumed that the exceptional treatment of the Kurds under the law is a provisional phenomenon that occurs during interim regimes and ends with the return to normalcy. In reality, the Kurdish region has always been governed by some form of state of exception. What has changed at times when a special legal regime was de jure in force was the intensity and scale of human rights violations against civilians committed through emergency regimes, forced displacement and cultural assimilation, processes which were often in place simultaneously.When the EU membership process started, many assumed that Turkey would have to undertake a radical overhaul of its constitutional and legislative order and to ensure the equal treatment of all its citizens, in law and in fact. This chapter argues that despite some progress, Turkey’s policies on the Kurdish question have remained by and large intact. It concludes, however, that while the legal framework is still ‘ethnic-blind’ vis-à-vis the Kurds, politics no longer is, as evident not only in the AKP Government’s recognition of the Kurdish identity but also in the Kurdish movement's increasingly bolder claims for a political solution to the conflict.
Obsessed with the preservation of national unity and homogeneity, the Turkish state has since its inception had little tolerance for Kurdish demands for greater legal recognition and a measure of autonomy. However, its 1987 decision to give its citizens the right to petition the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to enhance its chances for membership to the European Union (EU) obliged the state to confront, at the transnational level, the Kurdish demands for human rights protection and equal treatment. The cases taken to the ECtHR by Kurdish civilians revealed that cloaked in the language of ‘war on terrorism’, the Turkish military had committed egregious violations including the forced displacement of civilians , the destruction of property, the burning of forests, as well as extra-judicial killings, disappearances and torture. Turkey’s EU candidacy increased the existing international pressure on the government to revise its mode of dealing with the insurgency and with Kurdish political and cultural demands more generally. The EU demanded
that Turkey first and foremost execute the ECtHR’s judgments on Kurdish issues, but also grant the Kurds limited linguistic rights in order to fulfil minority rights protection as part of the membership accession criteria. Yet, as argued in this chapter, although there has been some improvement, the problem has not been eradicated nor has there been any substantive change in government policy on the Kurdish question.
Since the foundation of the press, the media in Turkey has had a symbiotic relationship with the state. The state's heavy involvement rendered the development of a "media policy" impossible, since the media did not exist as an independent realm to shape and be shaped by society and politics. Instead, it existed as a tool for both civilian and military governments to control and manipulate society. In the past two decades, the changes induced by the economic liberalisation of the early 1990s, the banking crisis of 2000-2001 and the European Union accession process produced a complex regulatory framework governing the media content and structure in Turkey. This chapter argues that, despite some progress, there are still significant legal infringements on media freedom in Turkey, where the media's economic and political dependence on the state continues.
From the outset, the media in Turkey have developed as a political institution rather than a market and media owners perceived themselves primarily as political actors. This has caused the media to be divided between proponents and opponents of the political establishment. Initially, media polarisation was characterised by ideological divisions. With the changes brought in the ownership structure after the 1980s, however, where news outlets were transferred from family firms to large corporations, the proximity (or distance) of media owners to government became no longer indicative of political (dis)agreement; rather it was primarily driven by economic interests. Accordingly, the journalistic profession was transformed from a self-driven political class to an instrument of power for the state and the private capital.This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the multi-faceted and inter-connected sources of pressure - the military, the government, courts, media owners and journalists themselves - on the journalistic profession in Turkey. These sources reinforce each other in sustaining various types of pressures on the media of a political, legal and financial nature. The constraints produced by these power mechanisms gain particular weight and become all the more effective in view of the absence of a collective professional identity and the lack of solidarity among journalists. The deeply entrenched socio-economic inequalities that characterise the journalistic profession, professional hierarchies and ideological polarisation deepen journalists’ vulnerability vis-à-vis political and economic power, as represented by the state and media ownership.
Protecting Marginalised Individuals and Minorities in ECtHR: Litigation and Jurisprudence in Turkey
(2009)
The ECtHR case law played an indispensable role in bringing to light the egregious human rights situation in Turkey in the late 1980s and early 1990s, shedding light to an administrative policy of systematic violations against Kurdish civilians. If awareness of the poor human rights record of Turkey was largely triggered by the ECtHR’s jurisprudence, reforms to improve it were made possible with the emergence of the EU as an actor in Turkish politics. This chapter argues that after decades of litigation history with the Strasbourg court, law and politics in Turkey fall far short of meeting the European human rights standards. While significant progress has been made in recent years in harmonizing the Turkish legal framework with the principles laid out in the Human Rights Convention and the jurisprudence of the ECtHR, the constitutional and legal structure continue to rest on an authoritarian understanding which seeks to protect the interests of the state against individuals at the cost of violating fundamental rights and liberties.
Unternehmer: Afrika
(1987)
Sozialstrukturen: Afrika
(1987)
Mehr Mut beim Euro!
(2011)
"Mittelschichten: Afrika"
(1987)
Introduction
(2010)