Turkey’s public order law sparks fistfights
It widens police powers to search and detain suspects without waiting for judicial authorisation
As Turkey’s parliament prepares to break ahead of June elections, one piece of legislation is dominating the agenda: a bill the government says is vital for public security but which the opposition says could usher in a police state.
The debate is a punishing one, even by the standards of Turkey’s notoriously pugilistic parliament. On three occasions in a week, deliberations have been interrupted by fistfights; doctors have been called in to administer first aid and deputies have been hospitalised. But article by article, the ruling AK party is pushing the legislation through.
If adopted, it would widen the powers of police to search and detain suspects without waiting for judicial authorisation, increase their scope for using firearms and give centrally-appointed governors the right to order police investigations of specific people and crimes.
“Your duty is to make these laws in parliament, not to block them,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last weekend as he upbraided opposition legislators for stalling. “One way or another, this code will pass.”
The government says the legislation is necessary to prevent repetitions of the violence that shook the country’s southeast in October. About 50 were killed in clashes sparked by protests about the fate of Kurds besieged in the Syrian border town of Kobani.
“Show us just one article that violates EU standards,” Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, recently challenged the opposition, whom he accused of plotting to bring chaos to the country. “Show just one clause that is against universal democratic standards.”
But a broad front is against the bill, including Turkish and international organisations, Turkish nationalists and Kurdish activists.
Their complaints add to a growing chorus of voices alleging that authoritarianism is rising and the rule of law coming under increasing strain in Erdogan’s Turkey. Recent causes for concern they have pointed to include legislation giving more powers to the police and intelligence services, government attempts to ban or censor social media and the removal of thousands of police, prosecutors and judges from their posts.