I remember a lawyer who won the lawsuit he filed against his superiors a few years ago over charges of being treated badly while he was doing his military service. But not so many are as lucky as this lawyer in having justice served.
The conscripts have no chance other than to stay quiet in the face of the inhumane treatment they are subjected to during their military service. This is because those responsible for treating the conscripts badly have never been punished as the inhumane treatment of conscripts is not regarded as a crime by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
The death of a soldier last week at a military hospital in Ankara, where he was receiving treatment after he was critically injured as a result of alleged torture at a military disciplinary prison, DİSKO in short, has put grave human rights violations taking place at military installations in Turkey on the agenda once again.
A conscript can be put in jail in an arbitrary manner by his superior, for even minor offences that do not necessarily fall under military disciplinary crimes.
However, increased public scrutiny of the activities of the TSK in recent years, including the severe torture of conscripts, has encouraged families and those being subject to bad treatment to file complaints against the officers allegedly responsible for human rights violations. But since most such cases are heard at military courts, whose impartiality and independency are in question, it has been very hard for those subject to inhumane treatment to see justice served in their cases.
Surprisingly, Parliament for a long time remained indifferent to the allegations of torture of conscripts at the TSK. Only recently did the parliamentary Human Rights Commission decide to examine the complaints coming from the conscripts.
Ayhan Sefer Üstün, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the head of the commission, told the media over the weekend that the commission will look into the death of private Uğur Kantar, who died following alleged severe torture while serving his prison sentence at a DİSKO.
“Private Kantar was reportedly severely beaten and then exposed to the sun while hot water was being poured on him. Our commission has been receiving numerous complaints about the bad treatment and torture of conscripts. Such acts should be prevented from taking place,” Üstün told the media over the weekend.
Two hundred applications containing complaints of ill treatment of conscripts have so far been delivered to the commission by the Military Rights Platform, a nongovernmental organization.
One petition published in the Star and Taraf dailies on Sunday quotes a private who wished to remain anonymous. He was put in an infamous DİSKO, where he was forced to lie on the floor covered with sewage water and excrement.
“We were treated like animals. Every night we heard each other weep because of the way we were being treated,” the same private wrote in his petition.
This columnist wrote several articles last year on the ill treatment of conscripts at a Kars-based mechanized brigade. Those who were subjected to it filed complaints against their superiors, but they were unable to see any results, despite their petitions.
The Human Rights Commission’s examination of complaints of the ill treatment of conscripts is expected to deter, to some extent, the widespread and arbitrary violation of human rights at military installations. But this will not be enough.
Turkey is a signatory to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture. The principles of this convention should be applied to the TSK so that officers allegedly involved in the inhumane treatment of conscripts will know that the crimes they commit will not go unpunished.
