Amnesty International calls on the EU to table a resolution critical of the human rights situation in Turkey. This is not a time for complacency. Despite a wealth of hard evidence about systematic human rights violations in Turkey, the European Union has been silent until now on whether it will take action at the UN Commission. No country can escape scrutiny by the UN Commission. The human rights situation in Turkey has deteriorated throughout the 1990s.
Torture is widespread and systematic.
Most disturbing is the increase in reports of torture of children in 1995 and 1996. Extrajudicial executions, disappearances and arbitrary detention continue with ever stronger evidence of state involvement and collusion at the highest official levels. The Turkish Government has failed to implement scores of detailed recommendations for change made by intergovernmental experts over the years. It has also failed to answer repeated requests by several UN human rights experts to visit the country, and has ignored the recommendations of expert bodies such as the UN Committee against Torture. Only last December the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture expressed its deep frustration in its second public statement on torture in four years, Amnesty International said.