Europe May Turn Back 1930

Europe Human Right Court President Jean-Paul Costas incumbency ends at this month. He has been chairing for 13 years. He talked about future of court, Europe, European Union, economic crisis damages to human rights.
According to Kayhan Karaca, reporter of ntvmsnbc.com, Jean Paul Costa is anxious about Europe future.

"We have two possible script view of geopolitical. First script is disaster. Those events at 1930's may repeat today (In Europe). Very serious economic and social crisis, unemployment, authoritarian regimes capture the competence and war. League of Nations demolishes and the passing from the peace to the war and the passing from international organizations to gunfight. This is the script of disaster. We can think these possibilities will repeat. All conditions are available. But although I think international society will resist despite these conditions and the peace will resist to the war. But the fact that we will live hard conditions is real. Climbing over economic crisis which begin 3 years ago will attend during long years. But I don't think script of disaster is inevitable" Costa said.

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ECHR; President Jean Paul Costa (France)

Born on 3 November 1941 in Tunis
Diploma of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, 1961
Master of Law, Faculty of Law, Paris, 1962
Diploma of Superior Studies (post-graduate), Public law, 1964
Former pupil of the ENA (Ecole nationale d’administration), 1964-66
Auditeur at the Conseil d’Etat, 1966
Rapporteur at the judicial section of the Council of State, 1966-1971, 1977-80, 1987-89, assessor of sub-section (chamber), judicial section of the Council of State, 1989-93
Directeur du cabinet (political secretary) of the Minister of Education (Alain Savary), 1981-84
Associate professor, Universities of Orléans, 1989-98 and Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1992-98
President of sub-section, judicial section of the Council of State, 1993-98
Judge of the European Court of Human Rights since 1 November 1998
President of Section since 1 May 2000
Vice-President of the Court since 1 November 2001
President of the Court since 19 January 2007.

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ECHR judge Corneliu Barsan

ECHR judge Corneliu Barsan said prosecutors who searched his home and confiscated his wife's computer and documents violated the Vienna Convention, which covers both him and his spouse, Gabriela.
But legal advice from the country's top magistrate council said the search was legal as immunity is not granted to judges for their own benefit or to hamper the course of justice. A final vote on the legality of the move will be taken by the magistrates' council on Tuesday.

The vote is set to be closely watched by the European Commission, which has repeatedly criticised the council for being too lenient with misbehaving judges. Romania, as well as Bulgaria, are still being monitored by the EU executive on how they deal with corruption and organised crime. This is also the reason why entry into the border-free Schengen area was delayed indefinitely by the Netherlands and Finland last month.

Gabriela Barsan, who heads the administrative and fiscal litigation department in Romania's top appeals court, is accused - together with a subordinate - of having received jewellery, plane tickets and expensive restaurant dinners in exchange for favourable verdicts. The businessman who allegedly paid the bribes, Gabriel Chiriac, has claimed that he gave them jewellery "out of friendship", Romania Libera newspaper reported.

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Internet censorship in Turkey (Google)

Important decision for all members of the Council of Europe
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is examining the application against internet censorship filed by Turkish nationals Ahmet Yıldırım and Yaman Akdeniz. The international court expects an item of written comment from Turkey until 9 June.
According to a written statement published by the Cyber-Rights.org.tr news site on 7 March, the ECHR merged the files regarding the access ban to Google sites and to LastFM com on 31 January.

The restrictive decision (No. 2009/337) on the Google services was given by the 2nd Magistrate Criminal Court of Denizli  on 23 June 2009. Access to the music sharing site LastFm.com was banned by the Istanbul Public Chief Prosecution on 26 June 2009 (decision no. 2009/45).
On 16 February, the ECHR posted the particularities of both applications on its website together with a list of questions forwarded to the Turkish authorities.
The court allowed time till 9 June for Turkey to respond to the questions. Cyper Rights org tr reported that the court in Strasbourg announced 24 April as the deadline for non-governmental organizations that applied for co-plaintiff status to submit their point of view.

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Human rights violations in Turkey

In an annual report released on Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the top judicial body to rule on human rights violations in Europe, found that Turkey is by far the worst violator of human rights among the 47 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In statistical data on violation judgments by country for the period between 1959 and 2009, Turkey topped the chart with 18.81 percent of all violation judgments, followed by Italy with 16.57 percent and Russia 6.34 percent. Within this timeframe, 2,295 judgments were entered for Turkey and only in 46 cases did the court find no violations. The most common human rights violation committed by Turkey was the denial of the right to a fair trial. Italy scored second with 2,021 judgments against it.

In 2009 alone, Turkey again topped the list in terms of violations of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. In a tally of the number of judgments entered for Turkey, 356 cases out of a total of 1,625 put the country in the worst violator class. In only nine cases out of the 356 did the court find there was no violation, while stating that at least one violation occurred in the rest of the cases. Russia followed Turkey in 2009 with 210 judgments against it.

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Debtor Prison in Turkey!

Since the Republic of Turkey was founded, it has experienced Islamic and ethnical conflicts. Right-wing and left-wing conflicts that began in 1970s among the people continued for 20 years and more than ten thousand people died in these conflicts which were experienced in every city, county and even village of the country.

On September 12th, 1980, a military coup seized power, and the oppressive junta arrested tens of thousand people across the country and these conflicts between the people were terminated.

Turkey constructed many prisons to establish its authority in this environment of conflict which had continued for seventy years. There are prisons in every city and county of the country.

In recent years, Turkey has been catching up with developments which took place around the world in the last century. When the world is changing, Turkey takes part in that change. Furthermore, when the world is changing, Turkey experiences that change two times. While it experiences the change in the world, on the other hand it also experiences a capitalization process.

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The Hardest Prison in History, Fleet/London

Fleet Prison was a notorious London prison by the side of the Fleet River in London. The prison was built in 1197 and was in use until 1844. It was demolished in 1846.

The prison was built in 1197 off what is now Farringdon Street, on the eastern bank of the Fleet River after which it was named. It came into particular prominence from being used as a place of reception for persons committed by the Star Chamber, and, afterwards, for debtors and persons imprisoned for contempt of court by the Court of Chancery. In 1381, during the Peasants' Revolt, it was deliberately destroyed by Wat Tyler's men.

In 1666, during the Great Fire of London, it was burned down on the third day of the fire, the prisoners fleeing at the last moments. The then-warden of the prison, Sir Jeremy Whichcote, purchased Caron House in Lambeth after the fire to house the prison's debtors while the prison was rebuilt on the original site at his own expense.

During the 18th century, Fleet Prison was mainly used for debtors and bankrupts. It usually contained about 300 prisoners and their families. Some inmates were forced to beg from their cells that overlooked the street, in order to pay for their keep. At that time prisons were profit-making enterprises. Prisoners had to pay for food and lodging. There were fees for turning keys or for taking irons off, and Fleet Prison had the highest fees in England. There was even a grille built into the Farringdon Street prison wall, so that prisoners might beg alms from passers-by. But prisoners did not necessarily have to live within Fleet Prison itself; as long as they paid the keeper to compensate him for loss of earnings, they could take lodgings within a particular area outside the prison walls called the "Liberty of the Fleet" or the "Rules of the Fleet". From 1613 on, there were also many clandestine Fleet Marriages.

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Erdogan discusses missile plans with Obama

A G-20 summit in Seoul offered Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the opportunity to once more express Ankara’s reservations about NATO’s planned anti-missile system during a bilateral meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Erdoğan responded affirmatively when asked on Friday whether NATO’s US-backed plans were on the agenda of his talks with Obama. “We conveyed our sensitivities to him,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency while speaking to reporters at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in southern Seoul after the summit closed. The two-day G-20 meeting was attended by a total of 33 global leaders.

The meeting between Erdoğan and Obama came only days ahead of the NATO Lisbon summit on Nov. 19-20, at which time a decision regarding the controversial missile defense system will be made.

Turkey is demanding that within NATO's strategic concept document there should be no references to any specific country as a threat and that the legitimization of the missile system should be made in general terms.

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