How the Security Zones in Turkey Are Different from Ghettos?

• 09.18.2015, 20:56
• Liana Hovhannisyan
•  Region,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

What are the so-called special security zones declared by the Turkish government for, the number of which has exceeded one hundred during the last few weeks of continuing chaos in Turkey? How those security zones are different from the ghettos, known in the history?

Judging from the information on the human rights violations and violence committed against innocent people only because of their nationality, one can say that there is little difference.

It is already several weeks since international organizations such as International Alerts, Council of Europe, and Human Rights Watch based in the US have been urging the Turkish government to ensure the free entry of their independent observers into those black holes, the so-called security zones. And it is not by chance that those security zones are mainly declared in the Kurdish populated areas. The representatives of those international organizations state that they have serious reasons to assume that in the areas where under the pretext of fighting the terrorism  the whole area is placed under the curfew, serious minority right violations happen.

In spite of this, the Turkish government not only blocks the access of the representatives of international organizations to those black holes, but restricting the freedom of speech in the country manages to hide all the violence that happens in those areas.  For this purpose, along with the representatives of international organizations,  the Turkish government also blocks everyone’s, including those of local  human rights activists' and opposition forces' access the to those areas.

However the information leaked by different sources gives serious ground for concern.

For example senior researcher of Human Right Watch Emma Sinclair Webb in her report describes how the policy in Turkey severely beat the ones who “violating the rules of curfew” try to take the injured people to hospital. In those security zones even children cannot get medical assistance. The same report speaks about a 17 year old boy, who was not allowed to get medical assistance after getting injured in his eye, as a result of which he almost lost the sight of his one eye.

The report by the parliamentarians of Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party describes the violence during the 8 days of curfew in the Kurdish populated Cizre district in Turkey. In the report it is stated that during those 8 days there was only a doctor in the public hospital. However, even that single doctor was not able to provide medical assistance to the injured innocent people because the police blocked the entry to the hospital.  During the curfew the residents even were not able to bury their dead relatives and were forced to keep the corpses at their places all the time. According to different sources only during those 8 days 20 innocent people died among them children and women.

In its astonishing that in the 21^st century the international community can be ignorant to such awful human right violations and limit their reactions by the pure statements expressing “concerns.” However, in reality the actions committed by the Turkish authorities do not differ much from the once committed against Armenians by their ancestors. There is only one difference -  nowadays the Turkish government has more efficient tools to hide those atrocities. Otherwise how can one explain the decision of NATO member states to have a NATO session in Istanbul, at the very time when all those awful things happen in Turkey?