The detention of Turkish Doctors Union (TTB) Chairman Gençay Gursoy by the police in the early hours of Saturday morning in Ankara has attracted wide criticism.

Police monitoring hotel rooms - 09 / 05 / 2008 08:45

Police have taken 49,550 people into custody since a law requiring accommodation facilities to report the identity of individuals renting rooms went into force in 2005, causing concern among rights groups and activists about security concerns taking precedence over human rights.

The law in question obliges accommodation facilities and hospitals with more than 30 beds to transmit the identity information of occupants every night to an online police database.

Of 10,000 such hotels, hostels and other facilities of accommodation as well as hospitals across the country that meet the requirements laid out by the Temporary Residence Information Project Law, 7,600 have already been wired to the system.

Every such facility will be included by the end of this year.

The system is based on the same infrastructure as a database known as KIHBI, which contains search warrant information.

Identity information transferred to the police is then compared to the KIHBI database. A limited number of police stations have access to information provided by the hotels.

If, while monitoring, they spot a person wanted by the police who has checked into a hotel, they immediately inform the police station nearest to the person's place of accommodation.

Officers who receive the information are obliged to initiate the necessary procedures without delay.

In 2005, the first year the new law went into force, 15,191 people were detained through this system. So far 49,550 people have been taken from their beds to testify at police stations.

All online records and notices are monitored by police headquarters. Facilities which have been connected to the system face penalties if they withhold information, including heavy fines and even closure.

The system clearly reflects the trend of security concerns increasingly trumping human rights concerns, said Yusuf Alatas, a former chairman of the Human Rights Association (IHD), in a brief phone interview with Today's Zaman.

However, he noted that the trend was global. "There are similar policy implementations in other countries. These policies are a clear violation of the right to privacy. It authorizes police to have access to what person went where and stayed at what facility when."

This is not the only problem, Alatas points out. The fact that not a single supervisory agency exists to oversee how personal information is collected makes the policy even more dangerous.

"The last example of this was how the head of the Turkish Doctors Union (TTB) was detained last week. The search warrant for him was something completely ordinary and routine. There was no need for him to be taken out of his bed in the dead of the night.

"Although this policy aims at ensuring the security of individuals, it actually threatens their safety. It is traumatizing to be taken from one's bed in the middle of sleep. There are absolutely no sanctions for officers when a mistake occurs."

Does this mean that Turkey is turning into a police state? Not according to Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples' (MAZLUM-DER) Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, who asserts that there is a golden balance in the human rights versus security dilemma.

"It is possible to conduct such monitoring without disturbing people or violating their rights. Human rights and security do give each other a hard time."

The police absolutely do not need to know where you are or who you are with in order to ensure security, according to Diyarbakir Bar Association President Sezgin Tanrikulu.

"This is intervention in one's private life. This policy is unnecessary in a democratic society. A majority of these detentions are of people who had no idea that there was a search warrant out for them; a majority of cases are like this. They testify and are then released. So this policy is definitely a violation of individual freedoms," Tanrikulu said.

Umit Kardas, a retired military judge, agrees that the hotel policy might lead down a dangerous road.

"General policy implementations such as this one are always dangerous. General implementations add up to a fascistic attitude. The limits have to be set out solidly and clearly. What good does it do anyone to collect very private information about people? I think collecting detailed information about people is a violation of individual rights."

Today's Zaman