In Turkey, every male attaining the age of 20 is required to perform a fifteen- month period of military service.  Legally, due to the absence of an organised right to conscientious objection, and the non-recognition of the identity of conscientious objectors, such people are considered soldiers and tried under military law. In practical terms, this situation leaves conscientious objectors exposed to the risk of life-long imprisonment. Moreover, individuals who defend the right to conscientious objection may be charged with the crime of ‘Undermining the people’s enthusiasm for the military’ (Turkish Penal Code, article 318) and sentenced to 1-3 years imprisonment. The law passed in the summer of 2006 dealing with the war on terror added this article to its provisions on terror crimes and a 50% increase in prison sentences has been predicted as a result.

 

Since the declaration of the first conscientious objectors in 1989 to the public, 70 people have announced themselves to be conscientious objectors. Of these, four have been tried and interned in military prisons. Moreover, as all conscientious objectors are defined as ‘military deserters’ they live with the constant and ever-present risk of arrest and imprisonment.

 

The following text reflects the legal and social situation of conscientious objectors in Turkey through presenting the case of Mehmet Tarhan who was interned in a military prison between April 2005 and March 2006.

 

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Certainly I was aware of the difficulty of the process I would go through, together with Erdem Yalçinkaya, in announcing my conscientious objection at the General Headquarters of the Human Rights Society on the 27th of October 2001.[1] I knew that Osman Murat Ãœlke had been arrested countless times, charged and consequently imprisoned for nearly 2.5 years and that despite his never having avoided punishment, that he had nonetheless been forced to live as a kind of fugitive, leading a life lacking in many basic rights.  Spending my life on the edge of a geography plagued by civil war and drowning in conflict has driven me to question the armed forces, the war economy, the states’ system, in short, militarism. Seeing that it is enough merely to look at history and what has been and gone in order to see that violence is incapable of creating any positive effect in any field of life, or solving any kind of problem at all, it became clear to me that it was time to announce my rejection of the attitude of “Either you are with me or you are a terrorist” which the U.S.A. holds over people. I was afraid then and I am still afraid, though not as afraid as I am of leading a life bereft of the holistic continuity of thought-expression-action. In the end, I announced my conscientious objection at a press conference.

 

Due to the prison sentence passed on the10th of October by the Sivas Military Court, I would like, no matter how little I may be a lawyer, to give some information, by means of referring to my own legal process, about the legal situation of conscientious objectors and conscientious objection in Turkey.

 

Above all, it is necessary to know that the Turkish Republic does not refer to the concept of “conscientious objection” in either civil or military law. As a result, the right of conscientious objection is not recognized and conscientious objectors are classified as “military deserters”. Objectors apprehended according to this definition are therefore sentenced under the Military Penal Code’s articles 87. and 89. for the crime of “Aggravated Disobedience to Orders”

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