Our vice co-chair and Bingöl MP Mr Hişyar Özsoy gave a speech at the opening of the PACE spring session:
As you may know we had a referendum in Turkey on April 16. Today I’m not going to talk about the content of the referendum. There will be a lot of debates in near future. Tomorrow there is a whole debate on Turkey and I’m sure the members of this assembly would be talking about the referendum issue. There was a highly uneven playing ground for yes and no campainers.The government had almost full control of media, used public sources for political purposes. The was an emergency rule countrywide.
The PACE sent a delegation to observe the referendum in Turkey upon the formal invitation by the Turkey government. The delegation has release the preliminary findings of their mission. The government may not be happy with these findings, because this delegation said that there was an unfair referendum, somehow questioned the legitimacy of the results. Then what happened? The president of the country, the Minister of Foreign Affairs who was once the chair of this assembly, they criminalize the PACE members, accused them for supporting terrorism. It’s very crucial for this assembly to send a very clear message to the Turkish government about the international observers who were there upon the invitation of the government. It’s crucial because when member of this assembly they go to the other countries to observe elections, their personal safety is the responsibility of this assembly as well. I’m saying this because while they were still in Turkey some of the members of PACE delegation’s photos were on the media, TV channels. We urge the assembly to send a clear message to Turkey that when they invite the observers, those observers should be treated in an appropriate and polite way even they disagree with their findings.
24 April 2014