Important Progress Has Been Reached To Upgrade Human Rights Standards

ISTANBUL - Prime Ministry Human Rights Chairman Vahit Bıcak said on Friday that Turkey recorded important progress to upgrade its human rights standards with the EU adjustment laws.
''But the most important thing is to put these laws into practice,'' said Bıcak in a forum on ''EU Adjustment Laws'' held by Bilgi University's Human Rights Centre.
Bıcak said that there were human rights councils in 81 provinces and 859 towns which worked under the structure of Prime Ministry Human Rights Directorate that was founded to determine and solve human rights problems in Turkey. The basic target was to make Turkey's EU full membership come true, said Bıcak.
''Political criteria have to be completed to become a full member of the EU and majority of these criteria are issues related to human rights. Therefore we should upgrade human rights standards and put those standards into practice,'' he said. Bıcak noted that they would make public the number of applications to human rights councils in provinces and towns as of January 2004.
Referring to freedom of expression, Bıcak said that one fourth of almost 100 decisions given by the European Court of Human Rights about freedom of expression were applications against Turkey. ''This shows that we face a serious adjustment problem regarding freedom of expression,'' he said.
Bıcak added that the bill which fully changed the Turkish Penal Code and Law of Criminal Procedure was transferred to the parliament.
(ÖŞ-AY) 24.10.2003