AMNESTY International has appealed to the Irish EU Presidency to put pressure on the Turkish authorities to end abuses of human rights.
Amnesty yesterday published a report detailing what it calls Turkey's "gross violations" of human rights. A campaign exposing torture, political killings and assaults on freedom of expression, was launched with the report.
Despite the end of military rule there had been a clear deterioration in Turkey's human rights situation during the 1990s, it says.
"People have been tortured for failing to show their identity cards, or after minor traffic offences. The elderly, children, women, members of minority groups, lawyers, doctors and even members of parliament risk torture", said the report.
Torture methods reported by Amnesty include hosing with pressurised ice cold water, hanging by arms or wrists bound behind the victim's back, electric shock to sexual organs, other forms of sexual abuse of both male and female detainees and beating the soles of the feet.
Amnesty's report, entitled No Security Without Human Rights said the state still restricted any discussion of issues it regarded as central to national integrity, including the behaviour of the security forces and the military goal of defeating Kurdish separatism.
Laws allow the imprisonment of people found guilty of "separative propaganda", whether or not they use violence. Non violent forms of political dissent are included within the law's wide definition of terrorism.
People investigating or campaigning against human rights violations have been killed. These include 10 members of the Turkish Human Rights Association killed since 1991, and 14 journalists covering human rights issues in south east Turkey who have died in custody, disappeared or been killed by the security forces since 1992.
Human rights abuses had reached an unprecedented level at a time when Turkey was seeking EU membership, Amnesty said. It called for the country's human rights record to be on the agenda in all international relations and contacts.
The director of Amnesty International's Irish Section, Ms Mary Lawlor, said the Turkish government must implement recognised human rights standards as well as domestic laws to protect the fundamental rights of citizens.
. The Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan, who is seeking to improve relations with the Muslim world, has sparked a row at home with plans to include Libya in a tour of Africa. The tour, which begins with a visit to Egypt tomorrow and finishes on October 8th, includes two days in Libya before ending with a visit to Nigeria.
. The Turkish Prime Minister has called for dialogue with the new government of the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Costas Simitis, which vowed to protest at a grenade attack against a Greek Orthodox centre in Istanbul yesterday.