Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-28-Speech-3-105-000"
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"en.20120328.18.3-105-000"2
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"Madam President, I am very pleased with this report and I would like to take the opportunity to thank its rapporteur, Ms Oomen-Ruijten, who has carried out an extremely comprehensive job. I think that this report, as a whole, calls for and supports the democratic reforms and the protection of fundamental freedoms in Turkey. I believe that the messages that it sends are extremely clear and precise and that they are of course addressed to the authorities, but also to all the actors in the political arena and civil society to encourage them to become more involved in further strengthening the democratic State in Turkey.
The report does not fail to make clear our grave concerns regarding the way in which the law against terrorism has been applied, directly threatening freedom of expression and opinion, the right to hold demonstrations, the freedom of the press and we are asking for this law to be amended, particularly Articles 6 and 7. We also support and call for a thoroughgoing reform of the judicial system: citizens, all citizens in Turkey, must be able to trust an efficient, impartial and independent judicial system and we support any reform that works towards this end.
We have also looked at the Kurdish question and we are clearly of the view that education in one’s native language is a perfectly satisfactory proposal to provide a response to the Kurdish question that is political and not merely for reasons of security. I think that these strong messages are all more credible when we do not hold back on our demands in the Council, particularly to ensure true consistency and to enable the European Union to finally recover its ability to pioneer reforms in Turkey and to use leverage to promote them. We are asking for all these measures to be taken with a view to opening chapters 23 and 24. Our demands are also clear in the case of visas: we need a roadmap for the liberalisation of visas, as this situation in a country in the process of accession to the European Union is quite unique, and therefore totally discriminatory.
We want these essential messages to be heard in Turkey and I would not wish for the readership of this excellent report and its importance in relation to the current situation in Turkey to be diminished or detracted from by questionable statements. What is the purpose of the reference in this text to the secular integrity of the armed forces? We are delighted with the huge amount of work which has been achieved in Turkey over a number of years to ensure that the armed forces recover their place, under the control of the civil authorities, and for military expenditure to be brought under the oversight of the Court of Accounts. What is the purpose of this reference to the secular integrity of armed forces which have served NATO since 1952, which are one of its largest armed forces and the presence of which is being made conditional on this secular integrity? We know the nature of the armed forces of a secular, non-religious State. That is what we want for Turkey and I think that together we must delete those words.
As for the Ergenekon trial, lastly, it is not credible to cast doubt on all cases in the Ergenekon trial as we know, and the European Court of Human Rights reiterated this in December in a judgment, there are perfectly well-founded cases where arrests on the basis of accusations of crimes or criminal acts have been judged to be well founded by the European Court of Human Rights. We cannot let ourselves be suspicious of and rule out all the cases involved in the Ergenekon trial. My opinion is this: if we remove these two references, we will have the widest possible readership, which is extremely important, in Turkey, in society as a whole, and in its entire political and social fields."@en1
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