CHIDREN TRIED UNDER ANTI-TERROR LAW

The amended version of the controversial Anti-Terror Law (TMK) is expected to be approved by the Turkish parliament and pass into law today (13 July). The draft law was prepared in order to stop the prosecution of children under the same conditions as adults.

As reported by the Milliyet newspaper, the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is determined to pass the draft law into law before the summer break of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM).

4,000 children were tried

According to statistics of the Ministry of Justice, a total of 2,133 children were tried after the amendments of the TMK enforced in 2006 until the end of 2008. Unauthorized figures suggest that about 4,000 children stood trial until the present.

The government prepared the first amended bill related to children who became victims of the TMK in 2009 in the course of the "democratic initiative". Rights defenders found the draft law insufficient and applied according pressure to the government. As a result, Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin and Chair of the parliamentary group Bekir Bozdağ prepared a new bill upon the directive of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The reviewed draft law was submitted to the Prime Minister on 10 June and discussed in the Parliamentary Justice Commission subsequently.

Legal evaluations

The draft law passed through the commission and was sent to the Parliamentary General Assembly in order to have it approved on 23 June.

While the commission was still discussing the draft law, lawyers Mehmet Uçum, Hatice Uçum and Gülçin Avşar of the Justice for Children Group (ÇİAÇ) made their own legal evaluation and pointed out the positive points and the deficits of the bill.

Lawyers Neslihan Tezel, Gülizar Tuncer, Davut Erkan and Mehmet Atak, also members of the ÇİAÇ, criticized the new draft law for being absolutely insufficient.

In a joint press release, the Initiative for Justice and the Joint Platform for Human Rights announced that the draft law was not conform to the Juvenile Justice System. The organizations referred to the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Beijing Rules, the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice. The organizations called for "immediate action for children" and urged the deputies to align the bill with national and international agreements. (SP/VK)