GENEVA: The protracted state of emergency in Turkey has caused serious human rights abuses against "hundreds of thousands of people", including killings, torture and arbitrary detention, the UN warned Tuesday.
A state of emergency imposed in Turkey following the attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016, and repeatedly extended since then, has had dramatic consequences, the UN rights office said in a report published Tuesday.
The report, which covers all of 2017, cautioned that the extraordinary powers handed to the authorities following the failed coup attempt had caused "a continued erosion of the rule of law and deterioration of the human rights situation."
"Routine extensions of the state of emergency in Turkey have led to profound human rights violations against hundreds of thousands of people," it said, warning that the use of emergency powers appeared to be meant "to stifle any form of criticism or dissent vis-a-vis the government."
UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described the findings as "alarming" and "outrageous".
"The numbers are just staggering: nearly 160,000 people arrested during an 18-month state of emergency," he said in a statement.
In addition, he pointed to the "152,000 civil servants dismissed, many totally arbitrarily, teachers, judges and lawyers dismissed or prosecuted, journalists arrested, media outlets shut down and websites blocked."
"Clearly the successive states of emergency declared in Turkey have been used to severely and arbitrarily curtail the human rights of a very large number of people," he said.
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