Anti-Torture Turkish Lawmaker Sacked as Head of Rights Panel

A legislator whose surprise visits to police stations produced pictures of soundproofed torture cells has been asked to step down as head of the parliament’s human rights commission.

Sema Piskinsut will be replaced by a right-wing legislator from a party popular with police.

The government said the move, which was announced this week, was part of a routine reshuffling of posts, but human rights activists said Piskinsut was being purged because she enraged police by proving that torture is common.

“Sema Piskinsut is being sacked because she very much disturbed police and the Interior Ministry with her findings of torture,” said Ercan Kanar, an official with the Istanbul branch of Turkey’s Human Rights Assn.

Under the right-wing party, “the human rights committee will work to cover up traces of torture and hide the guilt of the state,” Kanar said.

Most Turkish newspapers also reported that police pressure led to Piskinsut’s dismissal.

A member of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s Party of the Democratic Left, Piskinsut said she will continue to serve as one of the 25 commission members.

Turkey has repeatedly said that although cases of torture do occur, officers guilty of abuses are prosecuted and torture is not systematic. A parliamentary report released by Piskinsut in May disagreed.

It showed pictures of wooden poles placed under prisoners’ arms and used to suspend them in the air, metal bars used to beat suspects on the soles of their feet, and exposed electric cables in rooms in which the walls were covered with black leather for soundproofing.

Piskinsut’s demand that parliament discuss the findings went nowhere.