UN expert says torture appeared widespread after Turkey coup attempt

Sweeping security measures adopted in Turkeyafter a failedJuly 15coup attempt created an environment conducive to the torture and ill treatment of detainees despite the presence of legal safeguards, a UNexpert saidFriday.

Briefing reporters in Ankara, UN special rapporteur on tortureNils Melzer said he had visited numerous prisons and met withTurkish officials as well as individuals detained over their allegedinvolvement in the botched coup.

He said"torture and other forms of ill treatment seem to havebeen widespread in the days and weeks following the failed coup,"particularly at the time when they were detained.

Melzer spoke at the end of a six-day visit to Turkey to investigate torture allegations, and will present his findings in March 2018 to the UNHuman Rights Council. After visiting detention facilities in Ankara,Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa and Istanbul, he described overall detentionconditions as satisfactory.

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But the expert expressed concern over emergency measures such asthe extension of pre-trial detention to 30 days and denying adetainee access to a lawyer for up to five days.

"Worldwideexperience shows us that it is precisely in the first hours and daysafter arrest that the risk of abuse, including torture and otherforms of ill treatment, is highest," he said.

He urged the Turkish government to live up to its declared "zerotolerance" policy on torture.

"There is ... an environment of intimidation in Turkey that isconducive to torture and ill treatment and the authorities although they have a policy of zero tolerance for torture they arenot following up to investigate these allegations," he later toldThe Associated Press in an interview.

Turkey dismisses allegations

The expert's preliminary findings echo those of Human RightsWatch, which documented 13 cases of alleged abuse in an Octoberreport, and Amnesty International, which says it has it hascollected "credible evidence" of torture by police in Ankara andIstanbul.

Turkish officials have dismissed allegations of torture asbaseless claims and propaganda.

What we saw after the violent coup attempt ofJuly 15was an explosion in the number of cases.- Andrew Gardner,Amnesty International

"Ahead of the coup, we were already receiving very seriousreports of torture and ill treatment, mostly in the southeast ofTurkey," Amnesty International's Turkey researcher, Andrew Gardner,told the AP. "But what we saw after the violent coup attempt ofJuly 15was an explosion in the number of cases."

Allegations of ill treatment and torture, he said, are now beingmade by a wider range of people, including individuals with noconnection to the coup events or the violence in the southeast,which has witnessed the resurgence of a decades-long conflictbetween the state and an outlawed Kurdish movement.

Gardner said a "climate of fear" coupled with a state ofemergency that increased pre-trial detention to 30 days and saw thedissolution of dozens of NGOS and three lawyers' associations thatwere active in documenting issues of police ill treatment andtorture, has hindered independent documentation of abuses.

Turkey's Ministry of Justice had no immediate comment on theissue.

Last month, the ministry responded to the Human Rights Watch report, saying, "There is not even a small doubt that all the allegations ofmaltreatment or torture are being actively investigated by anindependent and objective judiciary."

In the face of repeated allegations that individuals detained inthe coup's aftermath were tortured, President Recep Tayyip Erdoganhas insisted his country has "zero tolerance toward torture," butTurkish officials have also dismissed the allegations of rightsgroups as propaganda peddled by coup backers.