Saskia Noorman-Den Uyl, a member of parliament from the Netherlands, also participated in the delegation. Simultaneous events are being held by Amnesty International in more than 20 countries around the world. Amnesty International has also energetically campaigned for an end to killings of prisoners and civilians by the PKK, focusing in its campaign report No Security without Human Rights on the PKK's abominable record of attacking teachers. The PKK has failed to respond in any way to three years of repeated appeals from Amnesty International. Turkish citizens are very commonly snatched from their homes or public places by plainclothes police or gendarmes or village guards without insignia.
Arrest warrants are more or less unknown.
Families are kept in ignorance and records, if they are kept at all, are not normally accessible to relatives or lawyers. The detainees are not permitted access to families, lawyers or independent medical advice. Amnesty International's view is that such a change, if enacted, could be a real turning point in human rights. Aware that there have been many unfulfilled promises of similar reform, Amnesty International has written to the Foreign Minister asking for a timetable for the changes, and urging that the planned reform be followed up by measures to provide prompt access to legal counsel, proper procedures for registration of detainees and notification of their families, and just as importantly, sanctions against police and gendarmerie officers who attempt to circumvent these safeguards.