On July 15-16, 2016, elements of the military attempted a coup d’état against the elected government of Turkey. Those involved in the coup deployed tanks in the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, bombed the parliament with fighter jets, and opened fire from helicopters on people who took to the street to protest the attempted coup. At least 241 citizens and security personnel died in the fighting.

Shortly after the failed coup the Turkish government declared a state of emergency, a step they are entitled to take in exceptional circumstances. They also have the right – and even the obligation – to protect the public, investigate crimes committed during the attempted coup, including murder and causing bodily harm, and to hold those responsible to account.

However, declaring a state of emergency does not give the government a carte blanche to suspend rights, and in particular there are rights and obligations from which there can be no derogation. Under the state of emergency, the government passed two emergency decrees that removed crucial safeguards that can protect detainees from ill-treatment and torture. The authorities formally announced that they would derogate from the protections of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), without specifying which ones, and later, that they would derogate from 13 articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) including those relating to humane treatment of detainees and the right to a remedy.

Based on interviews with more than 40 lawyers, human rights activists, former detainees, medical personnel and forensic specialists, this report looks at how the state of emergency has impacted police detention conditions and the rights of detainees. It also details 13 cases, in one case involving multiple detainees, of alleged abuse including torture.

Since the failed coup attempt, the police have detained more than 40,000 soldiers, officers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, teachers and others. According to government statements, most of the detainees are suspected of affiliation with the Gülen movement, a religious movement headed by the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. The Turkish government describes the movement as “Fethullahist terrorist organization” (also known by the abbreviation FETÖ) and accuses it of being the main group responsible for the coup attempt.

The prohibition of torture in international law is absolute and cannot be suspended even in times of war or national emergency. And yet, the emergency decrees remove crucial safeguards that protect detainees from ill-treatment and torture.

The emergency decrees extend the maximum length of police detention without judicial review from four to 30 days, which render detainees more vulnerable to abuse. Lawyers and a former detainee said that police had in some cases explicitly used the extended detention period to threaten detainees.

The decrees deny detainees access to a lawyer for up to five days, leaving detainees in de facto incommunicado detention since family members were not granted access either. Once the law enforcement agencies allowed a detainee to see a lawyer, they often only allowed legal aid lawyers, whom former detainees and lawyers said were more susceptible to pressure and manipulation because they are often young and inexperienced.

The decrees also restrict detainees’ right to conduct confidential conversations with their lawyers. Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that police officers were often present during their conversations with clients, or they sometimes even recorded the conversations or looked at their notes.

In several cases documented by Human Rights Watch, law enforcement officials and agents violated these rights to an extent exceeding even the permissive leeway granted them under the emergency decrees.

Police behavior and pressure from the authorities have also undermined the integrity of medical examinations for those in police custody and detention by often requiring that medical examinations take place in detention facilities and in the presence of police officers, Human Rights Watch research shows. In addition, the authorities have repeatedly denied detainees and their lawyers access to detainees’ medical reports that could substantiate allegations of ill-treatment during arrest or detention, citing secrecy of the investigation.

Law enforcement have applied these provisions not only to those accused of involvement with the coup attempt, but also to detainees accused of links with armed Kurdish and leftist groups, depriving also them of important safeguards against ill-treatment and unfair prosecution.

All of this has taken place in a pervasive climate of fear where lawyers, detainees, human rights activists, medical personnel and forensic specialists told Human Rights Watch they fear that they will be next in the government’s extensive purge of alleged coup supporters.

This report focuses on the period of police detention, that is, the period before an individual is brought before a judge. Expert human rights monitoring bodies have repeatedly emphasized that this is the period when detainees are likely to be most vulnerable to abuse. This report does not deal with how the state of emergency has impacted conditions in prison.

Lawyers, medical personnel, recently released detainees and family members of detainees described to Human Rights Watch 13 cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees to varying degrees of severity. The cases of abuse documented by Human Rights Watch include allegations of the use of methods ranging from stress positions and sleep deprivation to severe beating, sexual abuse and threat of rape. Eight of the cases describe abuse that took place in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup attempt before the emergency decrees were published. In five cases the alleged abuse took place after the adoption of the emergency decrees. These cases are listed in the report.

In most cases, Human Rights Watch has withheld, out of fear of repercussions, names and other details that could be used to identify those interviewed.

Emergency decree provisions and post-coup detention practices have made it difficult to document ill-treatment and torture. Most of those detained after the coup attempt were still in detention during the research for this report and mostly unable to speak freely to their lawyers and family. Several lawyers also told Human Rights Watch that clients released from detention were too afraid to speak about their detention conditions.

Some provisions and practices appear designed to deliberately make it more difficult to corroborate allegations of torture. For example, the practice of denying detainees and lawyers access to the reports from medical examinations done during and after detention appears to have no legitimate justification, but makes it harder to corroborate allegations of abuse. Another obstacle is a September 1 decree dissolving the current prison monitoring boards. Although prison monitoring boards were not an effective inspection mechanism, the government’s September dissolution of the boards in the absence of a functioning national preventative mechanism with authority to inspect all places of detention contributes to suspicion that the government is trying to avoid any oversight of places of detention.

As a result, some of cases of alleged abuse detailed in this report rely only on information that the client told his or her lawyer, who in turn recounted this information to Human Rights Watch. Nonetheless Human Rights Watch found these cases credible based on the level of detail provided and internal consistency of the accounts.   

Turkish government officials, including President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, declared after the coup attempt that they had zero tolerance for torture, repeating what has been the official position of the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), since 2003. However, the authorities have failed to respond appropriately to recent torture allegations, instead often calling those making the allegations biased and accusing them of being coup supporters or of making propaganda for the Gülen movement. The government’s summary dismissal of Amnesty International’s July 24, 2016 report on allegations of torture is an example.

Other measures also call into question the government’s commitment to prevent torture and ill-treatment. A provision in the emergency decrees absolves government officials of any responsibility for duties carried out in the context of the decrees, which cannot but facilitate torture and ill-treatment. In addition, the government postponed a visit by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to the country, scheduled to take place from October 10 to 14, 2016.

The Turkish authorities should immediately rescind those provisions of the emergency decrees that enable abuse, ensure adequate and independent medical examinations of all detainees, and promptly and impartially investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

Report by the Human Rights Watch