NGOs request president Iohannis and premier Ciolos firm stand about observance of human rights in Turkey

Several NGOs, professional association, unions and public personalities addressed an open letter to president Klaus Iohannis, premier Dacian Ciolos and foreign minister Lazar Comanescu, requesting Romanian diplomacy to assert the need to observe human rights, the independence of justice and the rule of law in Turkey, following the failed coup.

According to the source, so far Romanian politicians have expressed publicly only the hope that public order will be restored shortly but “no Romanian official has expressed a stand about the need to observe human rights and the principles of the rule of law in the process of stabilizing the situation in Turkey.”

“Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Foreign Minister, the fact that the present political power in Turkey is the result of free elections does not represent a guarantee for observing democratic values. History has known sad cases in which elected democratic regimes turned into dictatorships or totalitarian regimes. The turn of present events in Turkey may irreversibly place the country on undemocratic paths, a fact pointed out by the western press,” the signatories of the open letter said.

The letter denounces “reprisals and massive arrests”which followed the coup and which could suggest that “the present regime uses the pretext of the coup to eliminate the last elements of resistance and opposition.”

“Mr President, Mr Prime Minister, Mr Foreign Minister, we ask you to act according to values which lay at the basis of the transatlantic community, Romania is part of and take stand towards the alarming evolutions taking place in Turkey these days, to make the necessary steps in the limits of the democratic mandate you have from the Romanian people to reassert the need that human rights, the independence of justice and the rule of law in Turkey be observed,”the mentioned letter shows.

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