Turk anti-terror plan invites torture-rights group

ANKARA, June 20 (Reuters) Turkey's plans to beef up its fight against terrorism threaten to roll back progress made by the European Union candidate country in combating torture and other abuses, a leading human rights group said today.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) also urged Turkey's centre-right government to stand up for freedom of expression and scrap an article in its penal code that has led to the trial of scores of writers, academics and journalists.

''The anti-terrorism draft law now in parliament is a concrete example of how the reform process in Turkey is going into reverse gear,'' HRW's Jonathan Sugden, a Turkey expert, told a news conference.

The draft would delay guaranteed access to a lawyer for the first 24 hours of a suspect's detention, creating ample scope for torture and maltreatment, he said.

The plans would also make it a crime simply to espouse views that are shared by illegal organisations such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state for a separate Kurdish homeland since 1984.

Sugden said HRW had written to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan outlining its concerns and urging him to rethink the bill.

The European Union, which began accession talks with Turkey last October, has also expressed concern over the proposed anti-terrorism legislation and over parts of the penal code which make it a crime to criticise state institutions.

''We want to see clear leadership from the government in upholding freedom of expression,'' Sugden said.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE Critics say both the anti-terror draft and articles of the penal code give too much leeway to conservative nationalists who dominate Turkey's judiciary and who see their main task as defending the state and its institutions against the citizens.

In an interview with Reuters yesterday evening, the head of Turkey's Bar Association which represents the country's lawyers said the Turkish judiciary remained under heavy political influence and was not fully independent despite EU reforms.

''It does not matter who is in power, the judiciary is seriously under the shadow of the political authorities,'' Ozdemir Ozok said, noting that the justice minister and his deputy sit on the board that appoints judges and prosecutors.

''However well-intentioned, apolitical and unbiased they may be, they are government agents,'' Ozok said, adding that this undermined the whole concept of judicial independence.

Echoing concerns about bias among the law enforcers, HRW's Sugden said three people had been detained in May for protesting peacefully against the killing of civilians by security forces under provisions of the anti-terror draft -- even though it remains only a draft. The three were later freed.

Sugden said elements within the security forces were partly responsible for what he called an ''explosion of violence'' in Turkey since last November, especially in the impoverished, mainly Kurdish southeast, which has claimed 19 lives.

''The wave of violence seems to be aimed at sabotaging the reform process. Stability and respect for human life undermine the raison d'etre (reason for being) of the 'state within the state' and they feel threatened,'' he added.

Critics say ultra-nationalists in the security forces sometimes take the law into their own hands, especially in the southeast, in the belief they are protecting Turkey's interests.

REUTERS KD RN1722