ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that human rights was very important for the government, adding that ''human rights should not be turned into an ideological issue.''
Erdogan received Secretary General of Amnesty International (AI) Irene Khan.
Khan told Erdogan at the meeting that AI appreciated very much the reforms the Turkish government undertook in the field of human rights and freedom of expression. Khan noted that Erdogan was very brave in that field, adding that yet there were many things to do in Turkey.
Erdoðan noted that nongovernmental organizations like Amnesty International and institutions like European Parliament had some initiatives on human rights. ''But, I see that there are different standards in human rights. I was the mayor of Istanbul when I was accused and Feridun Celik was the mayor of Diyarbakir. Four foreign ministers came from Europe to Turkey to watch the case of Celik, but nobody was interested in my case. Later, I applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). After two years, head terrorist Abdullah Ocalan applied to the ECHR. ECHR decided to stop the enforcement of the punishment given to Ocalan before it took my defense in my case. In the meanwhile, I became the prime minister, but ECHR didn't give a decision to that date and I withdrew my case pending before the Court. There are double standards in this issue,'' Erdogan said.
Khan said that AI was a nongovernmental organization which was not financed by states, adding that AI had branches in 77 countries and they took initiatives about human rights in 110 countries.
Erdogan noted that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had a very important place in respect of democracy, adding that NGOs had a crucial role at the stage of government's taking political decisions.
Erdogan stressed that they attached great importance to human rights and noted some organizations which tried to turn human rights into an ideological issue in fact were obscuring the issue. Stating that they attached great importance to human rights consultation boards, Erdogan said that they had zero tolerance to torture. He stressed that they also had the same sensitivity in improvement of prisons and added that they did not yet reach the ideal point on the issue, but they were doing their utmost to reach that point.
Erdogan underlined that results of some social events could create problems, and added that there could not be unlimited freedom.
Khan said that they were a nongovernmental organization which announced for the first time that there could not be unlimited freedom.
Khan said that she met with high ranking administrators of countries to which she paid visits and asked those administrators to release people who were believed that they were criminals because of their thoughts. Khan requested that outlawed Democracy Party (DEP) former deputies Leyla Zana and Hatip Dicle should be released.
Erdogan said that the current government passed a law and started a process on retrial of those people although those people's imprisonment became definite. ''Judiciary will deal with the issue from now on. We cannot intervene in judiciary on this issue. The task here mostly belongs to nongovernmental organizations. I even advised these organizations to follow their trial and see their situation in prison. I hope that this issue will be concluded soon,'' he noted.
Khan said that being a full member of the European Union (EU) did not mean full sufficiency in human right issue, recalling that they prepared a report on human rights violations in Germany.
Khan submitted Erdogan their report on violation of human rights in Turkey.
(ÖÞ-EÖ-AÖ) 12.02.2004