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Thu, 07. Sep 2006
Europe's top human rights watchdog on Wednesday urged Turkey to halt all
mistreatment of prisoners, saying that the conditions in Turkish detention
centres were not 'reassuring.'
Turkey has made progress in stamping out abuse of prisoners, but detainees
are still beaten, threatened and humiliated, a Council of Europe special
anti-torture committee said in a new report.
The committee last December visited some ten Turkish police stations,
prisons and psychiatric units.
While the conditions found were 'encouraging', the Turkish authorities must
further step up their efforts to improve the treatment of criminal suspects,
the committee concluded.
'The picture which emerges from the information gathered ... is not entirely
reassuring,' it underlined.
EU-hopeful Turkey has pledged to pursue a 'zero tolerance' policy towards
torture and ill-treatment.
European lawmakers earlier this week slammed Ankara over its deteriorating
human rights record and a slow-down in reforms, warning it once again that
current membership talks were 'open-ended' and that Turkey's EU entry was by
no means guaranteed.
They also warned Turkey that the EU will put the brakes on accession talks
if the bloc's demands on normalization of ties with Cyprus are not met.
Seeking to keep membership talks with Turkey alive, the EU is mulling over
how to put the critical Cyprus question on ice until after Turkish elections
next year, EU officials have said.
Commenting on the option to hand over the issue to the European courts, a
commission spokeswoman said Wednesday: 'I cannot speculate on such a
possibility.'
The EU has given Ankara until the end of the year to open up its airports
and harbours to traffic from EU-member Cyprus, which Turkey does not
recognize.
The 46-member Council of Europe based in Strasbourg is the continent's top
human rights watchdog and is independent from the EU.