Press release, March 10th, 2006 - By Tobias Pflüger (MEP)

Concerning the surprise liberation of the Turk conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan, the European deputy of the Left Fraction (GUE/NGL), Tobias Pflüger, member in the foreign relations committee and coordinator of the Left Fraction in the subcommittee Security and Defence, declares:

Yesterday there was ordered the liberation from custody of the Turk conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan. However, this only provisionally! Mehmet Tarhan can be recalled at any time. On August 10, 2005, he had been condemned by the military court in Sivas to four years of custody. This was the longest prison sentence that was ever pronounced against a conscientious objector in Turkey. Mehmet Tarhan had appealed this decision.

The freeing of Mehmet Tarhan is also a success of the European deputies that had spoken up on his behalf. On my initiative, last fall, 20 European deputies had addressed themselves to the Turkish authorities with the demand for his immediate release. Conscientious objection continues to be punished in Turkey. The around 60 openly declared conscientious objectors are threatened by high prison sentences and renewed conscriptions until their 60th birth-year. A practice that the European Court of Human Rights has recently clearly condemned in the case of Osman Ülke.

Now it has to be a matter of Turkey finally recognising the human right to conscientious objection. On occasion of the EU entry negotiations with Turkey, the situation of Turkish conscientious objectors belongs clearly on the agenda.

Brussels, March 10, 2006
Translated by Carla Krüger, March 13, 2006