Matthew fights for human rights

---

A report by a Sussex lecturer on the human rights situation in Turkey is to be published this week. It calls for Turkey to allow human rights organisations in the country to work unhindered by the government and for the right to the freedom of speech. The report's author, Matthew Happold (pictured below), was part of an international delegation that travelled to Ankara earlier this year to observe a high-profile human rights trial.

Matthew, a lecturer in SLS, is a member of the legal team of the London-based human rights organisation, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP). The KHRP joined forces with the Bar Human Rights Committee and the Norwegian Bar Association in a mission to observe the trial of Nazmi Gür, secretary-general of the Human Rights Association of Turkey (the IHD).

Nazmi Gür had been indicted before the State Security Court for aiding an illegal organisation. This 'aid' took the form of an article published by the IHD that referred to the Kurdish insurgency in southeast Turkey as a "dirty war, which has been continuing for the last 15 years in our country" and to a reference to the "peoples", rather than the people, of Turkey.

The Turkish government took offence to this, in the same way that it has to other human rights organisations for speaking out against the conflict between the Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In particular, it is trying to close down the IHD.

The charge of aiding an illegal organisation is a serious crime under Turkish law and Gür faced the prospect of between three and five years' imprisonment. The trial was the subject of extensive international interest, with observers from 10 embassies and from the Danish Centre for Human Rights also present.

The case against Gür collapsed after the public prosecutor took the unprecedented step of asking the court for an acquittal. But Matthew believes that the prosecution should never have been brought: "It is unarguable that it was contrary to the standards set out in the European Convention on Human Rights."

Matthew concludes that, "The limits of free expression in Turkey remain unclear, and without reform of the laws restricting free speech the authorities retain powerful weapons by which to silence their critics." He hopes his report will be read by opinion-makers across Europe, particularly in the light of Turkey's hopes to join the European Union.