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The human rights situation in Turkey is disastrous. But that didn’t stop the president of the European Court of Human Rights from being honored with a doctoral hat in Istanbul. The oppositionists feel betrayed.
Spano first had himself photographed next to Erdogan in the president’s palace, then he received an honorary doctorate in Istanbul. It’s not just government opponents who are irritated.
When Robert Ragnar Spano gave an interview to Deutsche Welle in late May, the Icelandic career lawyer flirted with his origins. He said that anyone coming from a “remote island in the Atlantic” who is “always in battle with the elements” may have a little more energy and stamina than others. At the age of 47, Spano had just assumed the position of president of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the youngest judge in the history of the Strasbourg court.
Strasbourg judgments ignored
Four months later, the man from the far north can use his weather resistance after he accepted an honorary doctorate from Istanbul University last Friday, sparking a storm of outrage. The fact that the highest representative of the defense of human rights in Europe has been honored by a country that has systematically violated human rights for years is incomprehensible to members of the Turkish opposition and foreign observers.
“I do not understand how one can be proud to become an honorary member of a university that has wrongly expelled hundreds of academics and led to unemployment and poverty,” writes dissident economics professor Mehmet Altan in an open letter. Altan himself was jailed for three years for allegedly supporting the attempted coup in 2016 before being released following a decision by the ECHR.
In fact, Spano runs an institution in which Turkey is ridiculed more than most other members of the Council of Europe for gross violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2019 alone, the court handled 9,250 cases against the country, second only to Russia in terms of human and civil rights violations. Tens of thousands of Turkish citizens were fired from public service and arrested, especially after the coup attempt. The case of the well-known patron of culture Osman Kavala, whose immediate release the Human Rights Tribunal has been demanding in vain since December, shows that Ankara often does not feel bound by the Strasbourg rulings.
No time for government critics
Did Spano take advantage of his visit to Turkey, during which he was also received by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to exert his influence and point out the disastrous situation? In two lectures he gave to young judges and prosecutors, as well as students, the Icelander underscored the importance of an independent judiciary and freedom of investigation and teaching. He defended the acceptance of the honorary title, noting that when the presidents of the ECHR visit it, receiving an honorary doctorate from the host country is part of “tradition and protocol.”
However, Spano did not take time to criticize the government. The Icelander apparently declined an invitation from Basak Demirtas, the wife of imprisoned Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, whose release the ECHR has been demanding for years. Instead, the program included exclusive meetings with senior judicial officials and representatives of the Erdogan government. With his friend, Turkish ECHR judge Saadet Yüksel, whose brother was a member of parliament for the ruling AKP party, Spano also traveled to the city of Mardin in southeastern Anatolia to visit an Imam Hatip school there, among other things. The head of state Erdogan is one of the graduates of the religious schools. It seems that Spano’s visit to Turkey still raises some questions.
Brussels correspondent Daniel Steinvorth Twitter Consequences.
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