WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United Nations Committee Against Torture should investigate the deteriorating human rights situation in Turkey, the watchdog group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Friday.
"Alongside weak mechanisms for accountability for wrongdoing by state officials and members of the security forces, Turkey has in recent years introduced problematic laws giving the police greater powers to detain individuals without judicial oversight and thereby increasing the risk of ill-treatment and arbitrary detention," the statement said.
HRW noted there has been "a significant increase in government intolerance of public assembly" and increasing restrictions on free expression since the UN committee’s last review of Turkey in 2013.
The organization also expressed concern for what it says is an increased impunity for torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by security forces. It noted that there are cases from the 1990s against the Kurds that have never been prosecuted.
The international community, including the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations have criticized Ankara's ongoing crackdown on journalists and tight press restrictions.
