Eren Keskin
Prominent human rights lawyer Eren Keskin celebrates the work of Turkey’s top forensic medicine expert Dr Şebnem Fincancı, released from pre-trail detention with an initial 2 years 8 months and 15 days prison sentence for requesting an investigation into Turkey’s alleged chemical use.
Following is a translation of Keskin’s Wednesday article for Yeni Yaşam newspaper, lightly edited to reflect the most recent developments in the case.
Dr Şebnem Korur Fincancı is among the leading women in the fight for human rights in our lands. Above all, she is a good person, a good doctor, and a good human rights defender. She has always spoken out, under the strictest oppression, and has always stood up for human rights.
If we lived in a country with true democracy, its rulers would be showering Dr Fincancı with awards: She has introduced the whole world to the rights defenders and doctors living here.
Şebnem has always been a dissident. She was so when the militarist oppression was the strictest, she is so now. A human rights defender who never obeys. She has always spoken her mind freely, never given up on her ideas under pressure, and always prioritised her fight.
Şebnem is renowned the world over as a forensic scientist and a rights defending doctor. She has played an important role in documenting torture in both our country and torture and war crimes throughout the world.
She also played an integral role in how violence against women and sexual violence is handled. She was the one behind changing the procedures in evidence collection.
Many women find themselves able to report on sexual crimes after a considerable amount of time has passed. As such, in many cases, the physical evidence of assault is already gone by the time charges are brought. The only way left is to document abuse and sexual torture is by a psychological evaluation.
There is an important European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on this matter. In the early 1990s, Şükran Aydın was raped and tortured in custody in Mardin (Mêrdîn). The ECHR convicted Turkey for not seeking a report from an independent physician.
The Forensic Sciences Department in the Çapa Faculty of Medicine, headed by Şebnem herself, issued countless reports for women and trans women to document the sexual violence they endured.
The law rarely did anything, because the perpetrators were often with the state itself. But Dr Fincancı and her team were integral in many ECHR rulings that convicted Turkey for torture. Şebnem has received many international rewards for these efforts.
She led the efforts for the Istanbul Protocol, a recent addition to United Nations texts that stresses the responsibility of physicians in cases of torture. A life spent on creating a written record for human rights, and she faces imprisonment.
Şebnem did what fell on her shoulders as a doctor in the investigation of war crimes the world over. What led to her arrest was saying that allegations that the Turkish army used chemical weapons should be investigated. She was just convicted of terrorist propaganda for calling for an investigation. After months in pre-trial detention, the court at least ordered her release pending ratification of the sentence, and she joined the outside world again.
The Defence Ministry recently announced in parliament that the matter was in fact investigated. They found no use of chemical weapons, apparently.
So why was Şebnem convicted? How can she be blamed for calling for an investigation into a matter that the ministry said itself that it had investigated?
I have been in social movements for more than three decades. I do not remember a time when we had such difficulty in terms of free speech.
So many rights defenders are in prison or under threat of imprisonment… For expressing our opinions and demanding peace and democracy.
Eren Keskin is a Kurdish lawyer and co-chair of the Human Rights Association (İHD) in Turkey.
