TURKEY ACCUSES DUCHESS OVER ORPHANAGES 'SMEAR'

[Yervant1]

TURKEY ACCUSES DUCHESS OVER ORPHANAGES 'SMEAR'

By Nicholas Birch in Istanbul

 

Independent.co.uk

Thursday, 6 November 2008

 

Documentary shows children tied to their beds or lying helpless

in corridors

 

Turkey has objected to Sarah Ferguson's undercover documentary on

conditions in orphanages

 

The Turkish authorities are threatening Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess

of York, and ITV with legal action for a producing an undercover

documentary about state-run homes for mentally handicapped children.

 

Accompanied by ITV reporters carrying hidden cameras, the Duchess of

York donned a black wig and headscarf to document poor conditions in

two institutions in Ankara and Istanbul earlier this year.

 

Footage leaked to Turkish television shows children tied to beds,

and others lying helpless in corridors. The documentary airs on

ITV1 tonight.

 

But Turkish ministers believe the show was timed to coincide with

the release this week of a report on Turkey's attempts to join the

European Union.

 

"It is absolutely clear that Sarah Ferguson is ill-intentioned and

is trying to launch a smear campaign against Turkey," Nimet Cubukcu,

Turkey's Minister for Women and Family Affairs, said on Monday.

 

Amid reports in the Turkish media that Turkey's Foreign Minister,

Ali Babacan, would raise the issue of the documentary during talks

with the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in London tomorrow, Ms

Cubukcu upped the ante in an interview she gave to Kanal 24 on Tuesday.

 

"The result of our investigations into the allegations so far suggests

that there is nothing we need to be ashamed of," she said. "Our

preparations to take the issue to court are on-going." She added that

other recent audits of the institutions Sarah Ferguson visited had

failed to uncover evidence of abuse.

 

But Ms Cubukcu must have been overlooking a 250-page report on the

general state of mental healthcare that was published in Turkey just

a fortnight ago by a non-governmental organisation based in Istanbul.

 

Members of Human Rights in Mental Health Initiative visited the Ankara

orphanage that ITV filmed, and describe in detail smells so bad "we

had difficulty breathing", children with their hands tied, and senior

staff failing to intervene when one worker screamed at her charges.

 

The report barely got a mention in the Turkish media. The NGO has

received no response to five requests for an interview with Ms Cubukcu

it has sent over the past year.

 

"The shameful thing about this country is that it took somebody coming

from outside to draw attention to what is going on," said Fatma Zengin

Dagidir, who co-authored the report.

 

Yet she was slightly sceptical of the value of what she calls

"sensational" reporting. She pointed to similar stories that have

appeared in the Turkish press in recent years â€" women filmed banging

children's heads together in an orphanage in 2005; rumours of beatings

in a psychiatric hospital this January.

 

"Punishing one or two offenders â€" as happened then â€" does not

solve the problem," Ms Zengin said.

 

"The system needs sweeping changes â€" instead of the current top-down

system, one based on the participation of civil society, and the

patients and their families. If this scandal triggers real change,

it will have served its purpose."

 

 

[hyethga]

That's right, the world is out to get the Turkey for the sake of besmirching its name.

 

Finally, the conspiracy has been unveiled!