HRW: Geopolitics, migration have pushed human rights off from EU's Turkey agenda

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The European Union (EU) should leave appeasement policies towards Turkey and prioritize human rights, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Philippe Dam, the advocacy director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia Division, wrote in an article that geopolitics and migration have pushed human rights off the EU's Turkey agenda under Germany's presidency.

"Despite the Erdoğan government using courts to silence and detain journalists, opposition politicians and anyone regarded as a critic by bringing bogus terrorism charges, or applying new laws to stifle free speech and target civil society, the EU treats human rights as secondary," he wrote.

"The examples of the EU's top diplomat deleting a mild reference to rule of law when due to speak beside the Turkish foreign minister, or the EU's top officials Ursula Von Der Leyen and Charles Michel not even bringing it up, are shameful recent instances of appeasement," he wrote.

"... They should press Turkey to comply with its basic international law obligations. The refusal to comply with the European Court's rulings to release philanthropist Osman Kavala and politician Selahattin Demirtaş should lead to serious consequences. Finally the EU should give little weight to a vague 'human rights action plan' until Turkey demonstrates its judiciary is not a weapon of repression.

"Visible progress on human rights should be a prerequisite for any move to open discussions on a modernized Customs Union. It's now, before talks start, that Turkey should understand that progress is not possible without concrete measures to ensure an independent judiciary and democratic, accountable institutions that are essential for good relations with Europe.

"EU leaders' hope for more stable and reliable relations with Erdoğan's government should not mean giving up on all possibility of a rights-respecting Turkey. An EU "positive agenda" that ignores human rights isn't positive at all when it flouts EU values and fails Turkey's citizens." (AS/VK)