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	Widespread global assault on the freedom of expression by David Kaye Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression   20 October 2016   “There is no question that governments worldwide are wielding the tools of censorship,” warns the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, in a report on the widespread global assault on the freedom of expression to be presented to the UN General Assembly tomorrow.   “Governments are treating words as weapons, adopting vague laws that give officials massive discretion to undermine speech and opinion,” Mr. Kaye says.   “They are punishing journalists for their reporting, silencing individuals for posting opinions on social media, shutting down debate and the flow of information on grounds of counter-terrorism, protecting public order, sheltering people from offense.”   “Censorship in all its forms reflects official fear of ideas and information,” the expert noted. “And it not only harms the speaker or reporter or broadcaster, it undermines everyone’s right to information, to public participation, to open and democratic governance.”   The report involved a survey of hundreds of official communications the rapporteur has issued to governments, which resulted from allegations of violations of well-established international human rights law received from individuals and non-governmental organizations worldwide. The trend lines are stark, Mr. Kaye said.   “I am especially concerned that many governments assert legitimate grounds for restriction, such as protection of national security or public order or the rights of others, as fig leaves to attack unpopular opinion or criticism of government and government officials,” he stated.   “Many times governments provide not even the barest demonstration that such restrictions meet the legal tests of necessity and proportionality.”   The Special Rapporteur drew attention to increasing instances where governments assert rationales having no basis in human rights law. “For example,” he said, “it has become routine for governments to explicitly target political criticism, journalism, and the expression of singled-out groups.”   “Those who carry out physical threats, particularly to journalists and writers and bloggers, are rarely held accountable,” Mr. Kaye added. “Online, threats to expression are getting worse. Advances in technology have triggered new forms of repression and censorship that undermine everyone’s ability to hold opinions or seek, receive and impart information and ideas.”   One of the biggest threats to online expression is the use of Internet ‘kill switches.’ More than a dozen network shutdowns have been recorded in the last year. Internet shutdowns are just one form of digital censorship among many adopted by governments today.   The report notes areas of positive developments as well. The Special Rapporteur welcomes, for instance, examples where governments, legislatures, and domestic and international courts have taken strong steps to promote freedom of expression or carefully evaluate restrictions.   In his study, the human rights expert urges all governments to review their national laws to ensure strong protection and promotion of the freedom of expression, in particular to limit the discretion officials may enjoy to restrict the flow of information.   “The approach that many governments adopt towards freedom of expression today is abusive and unsustainable,” Mr. Kaye stressed. “Governments must not only reverse course, but also take the lead in ensuring its protection.” http://bit.ly/2e4mRIc http://bit.ly/2eX5CLh   * Access the latest news from UN Special Rapporteurs in Geneva: http://bit.ly/2fiv258 Visit the related web page
	Another 10,000 civil servants dismissed over Turkey coup by OHCHR, Deutsche Welle, news agencies Turkey   April 2017   Ahead of referendum, UN experts warn Turkey about impact of purge on economic, social and cultural rights. (OHCHR)   Turkey’s state of emergency has been used as a justification to undertake massive violations of the right to education and the right to work and to plunge many civil servants into poverty, according to United Nations experts.   “The dismissal of up to 134,000 public servants, without due process, compensation, or access to a proper remedy, for alleged links with organizations that the Government has chosen to proscribe, cannot be justified by reference to Turkey’s longstanding international human rights obligations,” said the experts ahead of this Sunday’s constitutional referendum.   They noted that even under a state of emergency, economic, social and cultural rights can only be limited in ways that respect the basic rights themselves and ‘solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society’. “But there has been no attempt to show that these blanket measures, which have destroyed the careers and livelihoods of tens of thousands of persons, satisfy such criteria in each case,” they said.   The right to education has been targeted in an especially problematic way. A significant proportion of the public servants who were dismissed worked as school teachers or for the Ministry of National Education. Around 1000 schools and 15 universities are estimated to have been closed by emergency decree. Many of the dismissed public servants were trade union members, including more than 10,000 teachers who were members of the Education and Science Workers’ Union.   The closure of some 200 media outlets has not only caused thousands of journalists to lose their jobs and livelihoods, but has also undermined possibility of an informed debate over the referendum proposals.   Turkish citizens will vote on April 16 in a referendum on a proposed constitutional amendment that would, among other things, empower the President alone to declare future states of emergency and to determine the measures to be taken.   “Given the arbitrary and sweeping nature of the emergency decrees issued since July 2016, there is serious concern that such powers might be used in ways that exacerbate the existing major violations of economic, social and cultural rights”, said the experts, who are in contact with the Turkish Government over the issues. http://bit.ly/2nQomBg   Feb. 2017   Turkey is shrouded in fear with thousands arrested and claims of torture in wake of failed coup, writes a freelance journalist from Istanbul.   This week some court clerks, librarians and computer experts were among the 4,500 "dangers to the state" who were sacked by the Turkish Government.   It boosts the total to about 125,000 public servants already dismissed, and 40,000 arrested since last year''s failed coup.   I have reported from Turkey in easier times, and wanted to go behind the staggering statistics to find out what it means for people affected.   The streets of Istanbul seem eerie. Secret police dot Taksim Square, once thronged by spirited crowds, and there is a chill as I head to meet an old contact.   Three years ago "Deniz", a 26-year-old philosophy graduate, was an active voice in Turkey''s political reform movement.   Now she scans other cafe tables before she talks, fearful she may be arrested like hundreds of her colleagues, her friends, and her fiance.   "They have broken our resistance," she says sadly in a quiet corner. "It died after the coup, and now we have buried it."   Deniz watched as the unprecedented crackdown gathered pace. First it was military officers suspected of involvement in trying to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but it soon ballooned into a massive purge that still continues.   US-based Islamic cleric Fataleh Gulen is blamed as the instigator, and his followers, as well as teachers, journalists and judges — in fact anyone accused of holding independent views — have been sacked or arrested. There are frequent claims of torture.   A state of emergency continues, ceding extraordinary powers to the police, at the same time President Erdogan is tightening his grip on the country and seeking to increase his powers through constitutional change.   "If I post on Facebook," says Deniz, once a fearless activist, "then a day or two later they will come to take me away."   I last saw Deniz in 2014 hobbling on crutches after protests in Gezi Park calling for political reform. A police car moved slowly forward over her, breaking her leg in three places.   But she wasn''t cowed, still expressing her opinions unapologetically, she had spoken of a nationwide "awakening".   "At Gezi Park people were hopeful, brave, ready to sacrifice. We saw the power of our unity. We saw that we could win," she says now. "But so did the Government. So they changed everything."   Her world is shattered. Her father and uncle, both university professors, were fired and now scratch a living selling fish by the river.   Deniz''s fiance languishes in prison. He was a journalist working in an independent newsroom that was raided by police, and closed.   All but government sponsored media has been shut down, and internet sites are restricted. As she spoke a man pulled up a chair conspicuously within earshot, in an otherwise empty cafe. "Civil police," Deniz whispers. "They are everywhere now."   Ordinary Turks ravaged by the purge are struggling for justice in a system that''s rigged against them.   One exhausted mother now heads her extended family, and battles each day with no income.   "I am taking care of 13 people, nine are children," says the woman who prefers not to be named, from her home in the ancient city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast. "All the men of the family are under arrest and we have no salary."   After the coup police burst into her home, and arrested her son, who has a young baby and four-year-old child.   Though unemployed for two years, he once worked for the Cihan News Agency which had alleged Gulenist links.   At dawn the following day, police returned and handcuffed her son-in-law Eyup, a geography teacher at the local high school, leaving her daughter, Asuman, inconsolable.   "My husband kissed our children while they were sleeping, then the police just took him," she says.   Asuman''s father, a retired school teacher asked the police why they weren''t arresting terrorists, or thieves? A few hours later police came back and took him.   This middle class family of teachers is destroyed. The family tried many times to deliver heart medication and clean clothes to their father in detention but were turned away.   When the youngest son, Yusuf, became angry, he was also arrested. And when another son flew in from France to help, he too was arrested for not carrying his identity card.   The women of the family have been fired, and their teaching licences revoked. The father''s retirement salary was stopped the day he was arrested and all of their savings have been seized by the state. They are destitute.   This case has been documented by human rights activists, though they say it is not extraordinary.   "Unfortunately these cases are not the exception," says a spokesman for Turkey Purge, which works anonymously gathering information on the purges.   With no assistance from police, Asuman eventually found her husband Eyup in hospital, undergoing surgery for a ruptured intestine. He had been stripped naked, blindfolded, and tortured.   Eyup documented the police beatings in a statement: "They beat me on the soles of my feet, on my stomach, then squeezed my testicles, saying they would castrate me," he says, going on to detail extremely brutal assaults.   After three weeks in hospital, he is now back in the over-crowded prison with the rest of the men in the Ozdemir family awaiting trial.   Getting a fair trial is doubtful. Lawyers and judges are still being arrested, often for defending or acquitting detainees. Those remaining on the bench have been galvanised into political loyalty.   "One judge was arrested while hearing a case," says Turkey Purge.   Another man, speaking in Ankara, detailed the 13 days of torture his 66-year-old father endured, including having his toenails pulled out. His trial is scheduled for February 20.   The man fears for his own safety, and knows many who have been arrested and tortured, including his brother-in-law.   "It''s always the same. Everyone is taken for interrogation and tortured for at least the first few weeks," he says, wanting to remain anonymous.   "They break bones, deprive them of food and water, they use electric shocks, all kinds of horrors."   Despite the crackdown, or perhaps because of it, President Erdogan''s AKP party still holds a majority popularity. Millions are drawn to the increasingly authoritarian strongman.   "We need a strong leader," says store owner Ahmet Kapucuoglu. "We voted for our President because we need someone powerful and fearless. We all stand behind him."   On the streets, a weakening economy and repeated terror attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish separatists has lead to political and economic anxiety.   Turkish political analyst Bayram Balci says "the nightmare" began in 2011, when the Government started severely limiting freedom of speech and criticisms of the ruling party.   Now the President is campaigning for an April referendum in his country of 80 million to grant him near absolute powers.   The possibility of him winning was recently listed as one of the "top 10 risks" for the world in 2017 by political consultancy Eurasia Group.   "Erdogan''s drive to centralise powers will exacerbate many of the existing pressures on Turkey''s domestic governance, economy, and foreign relations," the report concludes.   Analysts fear the country is becoming unstable, focusing on internal dissent while millions of refugees gather in border camps.   "Unfortunately because of the Syrian crisis, the development of authoritarianism and excessive polarisation of society, there is a risk of civil war," Bayram Balci says.   For Asuman''s mother, nothing makes sense, all she can do is wait. "How will the authorities ever be able to repair all this grief and trauma?" she asks.   October 2016   Ankara''s post-coup purge has seen over a hundred thousand lose their jobs. A new set of emergency powers has also given President Erdogan more control of the media and universities.   Thousands of teachers, health workers, and academics were fired in Turkey late on Saturday for having ties to exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen. The US-based Gulen, a former ally and now bitter rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been blamed for a failed coup in July.   Gulen has denied any involvement, but that has not stopped Turkish authorities from pursuing a massive crackdown on the civil service, educational institutions, and the media. On Saturday, a new emergency rule decree not only saw the 10,000 workers dismissed, but also shut down 15 media outlets, most of them in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.   The new rules also revoked the right for universities to elect their rector. Erdogan will now chose rectors himself based on a pool of candidates selected by the High Education Board.   The purge in the wake of the attempted coup has also cost the jobs of 100,000 judges, prosecutors, security officers and civil servants. Over 160 media outlets have also been shut down since the government declared a state of emergency in July. Ankara has defended the crackdown as necessary to root out those who seek to undermine the state.   July''s aborted coup killed 240 people when a faction of Turkey''s armed forces tried to overthrow Erdogan over what they claimed was his attempt to destroy Turkish secularism.   * A coalition of 14 leading international press freedom and freedom of expression organisations have condemned as an “extraordinary attack on press freedom” the jailing of top journalists with Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper and the closure of 15 pro-Kurdish media in a letter to leading Turkish officials.   On Monday, October 31, Turkish authorities launched a mass operation against Cumhuriyet, a secular daily considered one of the last opposition media voices in Turkey. Police arrested nearly a dozen journalists, managers and lawyers, including Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu and columnist Kadri Gürsel, a member of the International Press Institute (IPI)’s global Executive Board.   The coalition said today it was “deeply disturbed” by the attack both against “a highly respected newspaper that remains one of Turkey’s last sources of critical news and information and a representative of a major international human rights organisation”.   (External Link: http://bit.ly/2eZNjnU http://bit.ly/2fwaJih ) Visit the related web page
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