There are not many benefits to being a Back Bencher, but one is that we can sometimes ruffle feathers and say what we think and, above all, challenge the received wisdom. I accept that the majority view in this debate is that the accession of Turkey to the EU would be a good thing. I agree that, in many ways, that is indeed the case, and it would be churlish and remiss of me not to acknowledge the very important point that Turkey is a major trading partner, with the 17th or 18th largest economy in the world and growth that is five times the EU average—although that is not particularly difficult to achieve nowadays.
Turkey has made progress in many key areas, and it was the eastern outpost of NATO command through the difficult years of the cold war. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—who is no longer in his place—made clear, it has been a loyal supporter of both the UK and the United States over many years. The strategic importance of Turkey is not in doubt either, as it stands at the juncture of the west, the near east and the middle east.
I can well understand why Turkey still harbours strong ambitions to join the EU. The fact that that is in our strategic interests is based on two presuppositions, however: that we should filter out issues other than the economic progress of Turkey, and that we accept, to a certain degree, that our strategic geopolitical interests are the same as those of the US. It has always been in the US strategic interest for Turkey to be a bulwark against potential Islamist difficulties, whether in the form of violence or the exertion of influence in the sub-region.
I accept all that, and that Prime Minister Erdogan is making a good fist of reform in the country, but it is important to strike some notes of concern on human rights, free speech, crime, justice and immigration, as well as on an issue that should not be dismissed lightly—as the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) did earlier—which is the continuing affront and offence of the systematic denial of the world’s first modern genocide. That word was invented in 1943 to describe what happened in the Ottoman empire, beginning in April 1915, to between 600,000 and 1.5 million ethnic Armenians. The fact that there is still that systematic denial causes great concern to many people across the world, most recently in France.
I am also mindful of the fact that insufficient work has been done in examining the possible ramifications of Turkey’s accession to the EU. I commend to the House the comprehensive Home Affairs Committee
report of last July, “Implications for the Justice and Home Affairs area of the accession of Turkey to the European Union”. It made some very important points, but before I discuss them, let me point out that there are other areas of the criminal justice system that should cause us concern. One of them is the ill-treatment of prisoners in Turkish prisons. The Amnesty International 2012 report stated that allegations of torture persist and that there are ineffective investigations into alleged human rights abuses by state officials.
As has been made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), no progress has been made in protecting the rights of children in the judicial system. There are 47 states whose citizens can apply to the European Court of Human Rights, and at the end of 2011 Turkey applied for 10.5% of the 151,600 cases pending, requiring a judicial decision.The Foreign Affairs Committee’s report highlights concerns about Turkey’s domestic judicial capacity and the major backlog of cases, with 1.4 million criminal cases and more than 1 million civil cases pending at the end of 2010.
Serious concerns have been expressed over many years about the media and freedom of expression. In addition, women’s rights and equality remain a persistent concern, particularly, even though the numbers are decreasing, in the context of honour killings, domestic violence, sexual assault and forced marriage. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, like my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), rightly refers to religious freedom in Turkey, and states:
“We recommend that the FCO should remain vigilant on issues of religious freedom and discrimination and should ensure that its Turkish partners are clear about its stance in this respect.”
Not so long ago, Human Rights Watch said:
“As the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government focused on promoting Turkey’s regional interests in response to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements, human rights suffered setbacks at home. The government has not prioritized human rights reforms since 2005, and freedom of expression and association have both been damaged by the ongoing prosecution and incarceration of journalists, writers, and hundreds of Kurdish political activists”,
particularly through the misuse of the overly broad terrorism laws that, to give him his due, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway), the Chairman of the Committee, has mentioned.