President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised Turkey will strengthen freedom of expression and organisation in the country and the right to a fair trial as part of what his government has called a “human rights action plan”.
The proposal, promised in recent months as part of a series of legal and economic reforms, would also improve the judiciary system, Erdogan said at the presidential palace in Ankara on Tuesday.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised Turkey will strengthen freedom of expression and organisation in the country and the right to a fair trial as part of what his government has called a “human rights action plan”.
The proposal, promised in recent months as part of a series of legal and economic reforms, would also improve the judiciary system, Erdogan said at the presidential palace in Ankara on Tuesday.
Critics say Erdogan’s government applies political pressure on the judiciary, which has been bent on punishing thousands of the government’s perceived opponents since a failed coup in 2016.
Ankara says courts are independent and it has acted in the face of security threats to the country.
Turkey has ignored rulings by the European Court of Human Rights for the immediate release of high-profile philanthropist Osman Kavala, jailed more than three years without conviction, and Selahattin Demirtas, former leader of Turkey’s third-largest party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The court, whose rulings are legally binding, says such detentions violate human rights and serve only to limit pluralism and political debate.
Erdogan said on Tuesday a committee would be set up to observe human rights conditions in prisons and a human rights report on Turkey would be published annually.
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