Madam, - In the context of the deportation case of our nationals, Ms Hanim Gül and her sons, allegations of torture and human rights violations have appeared in The Irish Times. I would like to bring to the attention of your readers the following response.
Allegations of systematic torture in Turkey contradict the assessments by many human rights experts and those of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT).
I think that nothing can refute these allegations better than this extract from the statement by the President of the CPT at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers' Deputies in the Council of Europe on October 13th, 2004: "It would clearly be incorrect to say - as some have done recently - that torture is systematic in Turkey today."
In the past three years ground-breaking reforms have been achieved in Turkey. The Turkish government has adopted and followed a policy of "zero tolerance" towards torture and ill-treatment and put in place intensive in-service training for security officers, the judicial personnel and public prosecutors.
There is no doubt that these measures have contributed a lot to the improvement of human rights in Turkey. In December 2004 this fact was acknowledged by the EU Council on the basis of a report and recommendation from the Commission that Turkey has fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria. - Yours, etc,
KORHAN KÜNGERÜ,
Third Secretary,
Embassy of the Republic of Turkey,
Dublin.