ILISU DAM LAWYER ON TRIAL FOR "INSULTING
THE GOVERNMENT"
17th March 2003
A leading
lawyer in Turkey is to stand trial for insulting the Turkish state
on 18 March 2003, for his criticism of the controversial Ilisu
Dam project.
Mr. Mahmut
Vefa, who is General Secretary of the Diyarbakir Bar Association,
is accused of "overtly insulting the moral personality of
the Government and the military and security forces" for
his article, published in the Diyarbakir Bar Association Journal
in January 2002. If convicted, Mr Vefa would face between one
and three-years imprisonment.
The article
is based on Mr Vefa’s formal submission to the UK government of
a critique of the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment, in
September 2001. The UK government invited comments on the
Ilisu dam project from ‘concerned stakeholders’, to inform its
decision whether to provide £160 million backing for the dam.
The dam,
which would have displaced over 78,000 people, is effectively
‘on hold’, after international backing was withdrawn. (1)
The Kurdish
Human Rights Project, in conjunction with Friends of the Earth
and the Corner House, is sending a delegation to observe the trial
and to ensure that Turkey complies with its obligations to provide
a fair trial and to protect free expression under the European
Convention on Human Rights. The groups will then urge the
UK Government to seek assurances that Mr Vefa’s rights be respected.
In his article,
Mr Vefa states that the Ilisu Dam, if built, would deny local
people their property rights and exacerbate the problems of resettlement
for the thousands of people who have been displaced by the Turkish
authorities’ practice of "village destructions" over
the last decade.
Turkey has
a longstanding record of violating the European Convention on
Human Rights, particularly in the Kurdish South-east regions.
Almost one-quarter of the 19,000 cases outstanding at the European
Court of Human Rights in 2001 concerned Turkey. The cases
concern extra-judicial killings, torture, the right to a fair
trial, village destruction and freedom of expression.
Kerim Yildiz,
Director of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, comments, "We have said
all along that there could be no open consultation with affected
communities where the Ilisu Dam would be built, because freedom
of expression is so heavily restricted. The case against
Mr Vefa, a lawyer, demonstrates that people are not free to express
their views in Turkey."
The Kurdish
Human Rights Project and other delegation members will publish
a report on its findings of the trial observation next month.
For further
information please contact:
Kerim Yildiz,
Executive Director / Anders Lustgarten, Environmental
Officer /
Rochelle Harris, Public Relations Officer
Kurdish Human
Rights Project / 2 New Burlington Place, London W1S 2HP
Tel: 020
7287 2772 / Fax: 020 7734 4927 / Email: khrp@khrp.demon.co.uk
/http://www.khrp.org
Kate Geary,
Ilisu Dam Campaign
Tel: 01865
200550 / Email: khrp@khrp.org
NOTES FOR
EDITORS
(1)
Turkey had sought international backing for the £1.6 billion Ilisu
dam project from European and US export credit agencies including
the UK’s Export Credit Guarantee Department. In November 2001,
the lead contractor for the dam, UK firm Balfour Beatty, pulled
out of the project citing environmental and social concerns, effectively
ending UK support for the dam. Italy, Sweden and Switzerland have
also withdrawn from the project.
(2) Click
here for Mr Vefa’s article, the basis of his indictment.
