13/11/2024 Monitoring
The co-rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee for Türkiye, Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), has made the following statement on recent developments in the country:
“I am seriously concerned about the ongoing practice of dismissing mayors in municipalities run by the opposition and replacing them with governors appointed by the Minister of the Interior. The authorities’ recent decisions to dismiss the elected mayors of three municipalities run by the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM party, formerly HDP) - Mardin, Batman and Halfeti - and of the municipality of Esenyurt, run by the Republican People’s Party (CHP), because of alleged terrorism-related charges, confirm this worrying trend. They were preceded by the dismissal of the Mayor of Hakkari last June and the failed attempt to dismiss the Co-Mayor of Van last April.
As I already underlined following my visit to Türkiye last June, this practice, coupled with the filing of dubious criminal charges against elected representatives, is anti-democratic. It goes against the will of people who have voted in local elections and have chosen representatives who are closest to their daily lives.
People’s choices of the mayors and counsellors who govern them should be respected. Therefore, I call again on the authorities to stop this undemocratic practice, to revoke the governors and to re-appoint the dismissed mayors. If the latter option is not possible, alternatively, municipal councils should themselves be able to choose a replacement mayor.
Moreover, I am worried about the government’s legislative initiative on ‘foreign agents of influence’, which is now being examined by the Grand National Assembly. The proposed bill foresees penalties, including long prison sentences, for so-called ‘foreign agents of influence’. As stressed by some civil society groups, the adoption of the bill could lead to the criminalisation of some of their activities, such as documenting human rights violations, and could impede the work of journalists working for foreign media outlets or media outlets that receive foreign funding. The bill also lacks adequate safeguards against potential abuses and fails to align with international human right standards.
In view of the foregoing, and in light of previous recommendations of the Assembly concerning similar pieces of legislation adopted in other Council of Europe member states (for example, recently in Georgia), I call on the authorities to drop this bill without delay.”