Content tagged with Human Rights Agenda

Turkey lived a period believing that torture and ill-treatment fell behind, convinced by this showcase. Yet, this year alone, 692 people or their relatives have applied to the HRFT with allegations of torture and ill-treatment. This is only the number of those who consider applying to a human rights institution in case of victimization, and who have the power and means to do so. Likewise, 2024 was a year in which freedom of assembly and demonstration was largely ignored. According to the data of the HRA Documentation Unit, at least 4,368 people were took into custody under torture and ill-treatment as a result of the intervention of law enforcement forces in peaceful protests.

Andrey X, as he prefers to use the name on social media, is a Russian-Israeli journalist and activist living in Palestine. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he immigrated to Tel Aviv, which turned his world upside down and also gave him an opportunity to delve into Israel-Palestine conflicts. Now he is covering unjust practices in the West Bank. We have talked about conditions, the current situation, and importance of journalism in the West Bank.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72 years old, has won so much admiration and respect for the way she handled the judicial process concerning the gang rape of which she was the victim, that she has become a symbol of courage in recent years, going beyond 2024. “Shame must change sides” she said, “it's not us who should be ashamed, it's them. I don't want any woman who has been raped to feel shame anymore."

One of the distinctive features of this year is that the number of children who are out of education despite being of compulsory education age is at the highest level of the last three years. Income inequality has reached its highest level in the last 18 years, signalling the severity of the economic crisis in education. 42 out of every 100 children are poor. ERG's report reveals that the number of students between the ages of 6-17 who are out of education increased by 38.4 per cent compared to the previous year.

Amnesty International has examined and documented Israel's policies and actions against the Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October 2023 and, within the framework of international law, has named what has happened and is happening: Genocide. This new 300-page report, the first of its kind, is based on interviews with 212 people, including Palestinian survivors, local officials in Gaza, health workers, humanitarian NGO workers, analyses of a wide range of visual and digital data, published news reports, and statements by officials representing various institutions of the Israeli state. We talked to Ruhat Sena Akşener, Director of Amnesty International Turkey, about the report titled ‘You Feel Like You're Not Human-Israel's Genocide against Palestinians in Gaza’, which leads to the determination of ‘genocidal intent’.

‘’Politicians does talk about family but the conventional family consisting of mum, dad, children and the elderly does not exist in Turkey. The family is transforming, the family has never been a sterile environment. Besides, Turkey is trying to provide all the care service through this conventional family. How will people living alone receive support? What about the elderly who have lost their children or the elderly who have chosen to live differently? This is a policy blind to society. It also has nothing to do with increasing fertility because the number of poor elderly will not decrease when the number of babies increases. As well as the existing elderly population, let's also think about the old age of children who are forced to work in temporary, mobile jobs and in the agricultural sector, young people who are currently working in flexible employment. Moreover, retirement means becoming poorer and poorer in Turkey."

I wander around Suriçi, using both my own testimonies and the memory provided to me by journalism by listening to witnesses and as a map. After a hundred days of conflict, the police barricades and screens that I last saw in 2019 have been removed from some streets that were closed for years. They have removed, but many of them seem to have opened neither to the old nor to the new, but to gaps that freeze space in time. As I wander around, I listen to the old inhabitants of Sur. One of them is a construction worker, he migrated to another district when his house was demolished. What is significant is that now, if there is a job in construction, he comes to his old neighborhood to work. Another is a plumber whose house, shop and tools were leveled in Sur. They are collectively paying installments to own a new Sur house.

The last destructive blow of the holding that gets sturdy as it leans on the political power. Preparations for the ‘Halilağa Copper Quarry Capacity Increase, Ore Enrichment Plant and Waste Storage Facility’ to be built in Hacıbekirler village of Çanakkale Bayramiç have begun by cutting down trees on 5200 decares of land. On 9 November, minibuses, buses and vehicles departing from different parts of the Aegean, Thrace and Anatolia park on both sides of the road. When a person cries with choking breath for a tree, it brings to mind the mythic past of this geography, the Homeric texts. As in the tragedies where pain rises from human bodies to the clouds of Zeus, where vows of revenge and anger do not fit in the mountains, women cry out “do not cut down our trees”, doubled over from shouting.

It is important for those who do not want to waste the slightest chance of a permanent solution and an honorable peace to calmly make sense of this ebb and flow of politics. The report titled “Looking at the Kurdish Problem with its Changing Dynamics after 2015 in Terms of Authoritarian Conflict Management” puts some of the pieces in place and offers a perspective that can serve as a source. The report is based on the basic idea that authoritarian regimes consider keeping conflict processes at the ‘unresolved’ stage as a kind of solution for themselves, and that they realise this not only with military force but also by supporting it with a series of political, spatial and economic policies. The underlying structural causes of the conflict are not specifically addressed, any democratic space for a solution is seen as a threat, and the involvement of international actors is not recognised. It can be coordinated with neoliberal policies and corruption can be used as a tool.

Women feel gender-based discrimination in the labor market at every stage, from job search to working conditions, from office life to unemployment. The victimizations that diversify with advancing age are completely invisible despite affecting millions of women. Kadın İşçi (Woman Worker, www.kadinisci.org) provides valuable journalism that focuses its editorial line on women's labor. The Women Workers' Solidarity Association, which created the website, recently announced a report titled “Gender-Based Discrimination Faced by Women Over 50 in the Field of Paid Labor and Solution Suggestions” and addressed the invisibility of this field. So what do women over 50 do?

Prisons described as Type S and Type Y Penitentiary Institutions or High Security Penal Institutions, which became operational after 2021, mostly consist of single-person cells, where isolation prevails due to both their architectural structures and practices. The sky is not even visible in the prison yard, all communication is provided by megaphones and buttons, which is completely dehumanizing, and open visits are even more isolating as they are separate for each prisoner. This is why they are referred to as “wells”. The Human Rights Association's report on the issue warns of the psychiatric disorders that these conditions may cause, as well as the physical illnesses they may cause in the short, medium and long term.

An old house built with traditional architecture in Karacaköy, Çatalca, 100 km away from Istanbul, looking with a tired face from the past centuries. While the residents of the house, who want to renew the flooring, are working downstairs, they suddenly take a break in amazement, and a tombstone written in the Greek alphabet appears from the ground. When the meaning is deciphered, the following is revealed: “Here lies Chrysoula Rodaki, servant of God, March 1887”. What follows is director Kerem Soyyılmaz's journey in search of the former owners of his grandparents' house. His aunt and cousins, who spent the most time in that house, accompany him on this journey. Searching for Rodakis, won the Best Documentary Film Award at the Adana Golden Boll Film Festival last year, among many other awards. The movie is also available on BluTV.