Turkey Regional Action Network
February 2011
(1) All Children Have Rights Campaign
Continued
Please continue strengthening your
campaigning on the All Children Have
Rights. April 23rd is Turkey’s national
Children’s Day, which could be a target
day to build a momentum for promoting the
webaction to send an email to the Turkey’s
Minister of Justice at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-
action/turkey-all-children-have-rights.
A 5 minutes short footage from the
Amnesty International’s 50-minute
documentary film regarding this issue can
be viewed at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-
updates/video-and-audio/turkey-all-
children-have-rights-2010-11-22.
  
(2) Protect Halil Savda’s Right to
Freedom of Expression
Demand the Unconditional Release of Yet
Another Conscientious Objector!
Halil Savda, a human rights defender and
conscientious objector is at risk of another
imprisonment for freely expressing his
support for conscientious objectors.
Amnesty International needs your help with
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a petition writing campaign in order to
demand his immediate and unconditional
release and to protect his right to freedom
of expression.
Until he was declared “unfit” for military
service in 2008, Halil Savda was repeatedly
prosecuted for his refusal to perform
military service in Turkey. Although he will
not be personally called up again, he is still
at risk of prosecution and intimidation by
the Turkish authorities for his ongoing
activities defending the rights of other
conscientious objectors. As a human rights
defender, Halil Savda has written articles,
given interviews in a number of newspapers
and given public speeches at protests and
meetings against compulsory military
service on many occasions. He is also the
registered owner of the Savaş Karşıtları
(War Resisters) website in Turkey.
Halil Savda currently faces two separate
sets of criminal charges for publicly
supporting conscientious objectors under
Article 318 of the Turkish Penal Code for
"alienating the public from military service."
However, Article 318 is in breach of Article
10 of the European Convention of Human
Rights (ECHR) and Article 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), which provide the right to
freedom of expression, to which Turkey is a
signatory.
On 6 January 2010, Halil Savda and another
18 people were arrested at a protest in
support of Enver Aydemir, a conscientious
objector who has been detained since 24
December 2009 for refusing to carry out
compulsory military service. The first
hearing in the case against Halil Savda and
the 18 others took place on February 15th,
2010, where they gave statements. The
next hearing will be on April 22nd, 2011 in
Ankara. If convicted, all 19 protesters could
face imprisonment.
The other incident took place in August
2006, when Halil Savda was arrested after
he gave a public statement in support of
two Israeli conscientious objectors, Itzik
Shabbat and Amir Paster, at a press
conference outside the Israeli embassy in
Istanbul. Itzik Shabbat and Amir Paster
were refusing to participate in the 34-day
war between Israel and Hizbullah in
southern Lebanon. The indictment was
issued against Halil Savda in May 2007 and
trial proceedings continued until June 2008,
when he was sentenced to five months in
prison under Article 318 of the Turkish
Penal Code. His case was reviewed on
January 24, 2011. Halil Savda’s convictions
are at the Supreme Court of Appeal but
there has been no decision yet. He has not
served his sentence.
In 2004, aged 30, Halil Savda declared
himself a conscientious objector, because of
his strong commitment to human welfare
and dignity and his opposition to all wars
and compulsory military service. In an
interview with the UK newspaper the
Guardian in April 2009, he stated: “Through
my rejection to military service, I said ‘no’
to the conflict that has been going on
between the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party)
and the Turkish armed forces for the last 25
years. I sent the message to the people of
Turkey not to join the army or the guerrillas
through my conscientious objection. While
strengthening my search for freedom
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through my conscientious objection, I gave
the message that security of life can only be
realised through detaching violence from it.
I believe that we need to go beyond
violence and that a culture of non-violence
should flourish.”
Since 2004, Halil Savda was arrested on
multiple occasions and prosecuted three
times for refusing to perform military
service. In total, he was detained for
around 17 months over five years – for
around 18 days in 2004, one month in
2005, seven and a half months in 2007 and
eight months in 2009. Halil Savda has told
Amnesty International that while detained
in 2007, he was ill-treated, including being
kicked and hit by four officers, having a
dirty cloth shoved in his mouth, kept naked
for three days in a room without chairs or a
bed and forced to sleep on a concrete floor
without even a blanket. These incidents
have never been properly investigated.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in
Turkish or your own language:
• Asking the authorities to ensure that
Halil Savda is free to continue publishing
articles and making public speeches in
support of conscientious objectors,
without fear of prosecution or
intimidation.
• Stating that if Halil Savda is imprisoned
for publicly supporting the conscientious
objectors Enver Aydemir, Itzik Shabbat
and Amir Paster, Amnesty International
will consider him a prisoner of
conscience and will call for his
immediate and unconditional release.
• Expressing concern that in the past Halil
Savda has been repeatedly arrested,
charged and imprisoned for being a
conscientious objector.
• Noting that Halil Savda's two convictions
under Article 318 of the Turkish Penal
Code for allegedly “alienating the people
from the institution of military service,”
represent a violation of Article 10 of the
European Convention of Human Rights
(ECHR) and Article 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Turkey
is a signatory.
Email: info@msb.gov.tr
Salutation: Dear Minister
President of Turkey Abdullah Gul
http://www.tccb.gov.tr/pages/communicatio
n/message_to_president/
and go to a “write to the President” page.

• Urging the authorities to stop

immediately the prosecutions of
conscientious objectors and to introduce
an alternative civilian service for
conscientious objectors, in line with
European and international standards
and recommendations.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS TO:

Ministry of Justice
Sadullah Ergin
Minister of Justice
Adalet Bakanligi
06659 Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 419 3370
Salutation: Dear Minister

AI would like you to target the Turkey’s

Ministry of Justice for your letter writing
campaigns. You may also copy other
influential actors indicated below:

Ambassador Namik Tan

Embassy of Turkey
2525 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington, DC 20008

Ministry of National Defense

Vecdi Gonul
Minister of National Defence
Milli Savunma Bakanligi
06100 Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 418 4737

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