HUMAN RIGHTS IN TURKEY

Human rights in Turkey

Human rights in Turkey are governed by the 1982 Constitution, domestic law, and the international human rights agreements to which Turkey is a party. The Constitution guarantees a range of fundamental rights and freedoms, while ratified international human rights treaties take precedence over conflicting domestic legislation. Turkey is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and is subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The country's human rights record has nevertheless been the subject of longstanding domestic and international scrutiny, particularly concerning the right to life, torture and ill-treatment, prison conditions, and the freedoms of expression, religion, assembly and association. As of 2025, the Freedom House rated Turkey's human rights at 33 out of 100 (not free).[1] Serious human rights violations have been documented during periods of political and armed conflict, including following the 1980 military coup and during the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. In the 1980s and 1990s, reported abuses included torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and forced displacement, particularly in predominantly Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey. The ECtHR has repeatedly found Turkey responsible for violations of the Convention in cases involving the right to life, torture, freedom of expression and association, arbitrary detention and the treatment of Kurds. From the early 2000s, reforms associated with Turkey's efforts toward European Union membership abolished the death penalty and expanded some cultural and linguistic rights for minorities, including the use of the Kurdish language.

Human rights concerns intensified following the 2016 attempted coup, after which the government declared a state of emergency and carried out large-scale dismissals, arrests and prosecutions of people accused of links to the Gülen movement or the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Human rights organizations and international bodies have reported allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearance, as well as restrictions on journalists, political opponents, human rights defenders and media organizations. Turkish laws relating to terrorism, public order and expression have also been used to prosecute non-violent speech, while restrictions on peaceful demonstrations and political and civil-society activity have attracted criticism. The treatment of Armenians has also been a recurring human rights issue, involving discrimination and marginalization of Armenians, as well as repression and censorship around discussion of the Armenian genocide. Other issues addressed in Turkey's human rights record include the treatment and cultural rights of ethnic and religious minorities, discrimination against LGBT people, women's rights and violence against women, and the rights of conscientious objectors.

Overview

This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: needs recent cites. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (August 2026) The Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey is the government body responsible for protecting human rights. Acute human rights issues include in particular the status of Kurds in Turkey.[2][3] The Kurdish–Turkish conflict has caused numerous human rights violations over the years. There is an ongoing debate in the country on the right to life, torture, freedom of expression as well as freedoms of religion, assembly and association.[4][5][6][7] In 2009, the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey released two reports detailing human rights abuses including torture, ill-treatment and isolation of small groups in prison.[8] The reports documented 419 deaths in custody in a period of 15 years of military rule with 39 deaths recorded in prison in 2008 alone. Under the state of emergency powers, crackdown on the media freedom increased with several journalist arrested and held in prisons, media outlets shuttered or taken over by the state on the allegations of terrorism, “anti-state activities” and “denigrating Turkishness” or “insulting Islam”.[9][10] Turkey still keeps laws which are seen as undemocratic or authoritarian, such as prohibiting minorities to get a primary education in their mother tongue. The country's largest minority, the Kurds, which comprise 15% of the population, have no right to self-determination even though Turkey has signed the ICCPR.[11] In March 2017, the United Nations accused the Turkish government of "massive destruction, killings and numerous other serious human rights violations" against the ethnic Kurdish minority.[12]

Commitment to international human rights law

The Republic of Turkey has entered various human rights commitments, some of which are expressed in the 1982 Turkish Constitution, Part Two of which guarantees "fundamental rights and freedoms" such as the right to life, security of person, and right to property. Human rights in Turkey are legally protected by a variety of international law treaties, which take precedence over domestic legislation, according to Article 90 of the 1982 Constitution.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was not signed by Turkey until 2000.[13] As of today, however, Turkey is party to 16 out of 18 international human rights treaties of the United Nations.[14][15]

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

15 Aug 2000 (s)

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

15 Aug 2000 (s) 23 Sept 2003 (r)

Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights

3 Feb 2004 Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against

Women

20 Dec 1985 (a)

Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of

Discrimination against Women

8 Sep 2000 (s), 29 Oct 2002 (r)

United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime

13 Dec 2000 (s), 25 Mar 2003 (r) Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or

Degrading Treatment or Punishment

11.01.88 (s), 26.02.88 (r)

Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture

and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

list2 = 10 May 1995 (s), 17.09.97 (r)

Protocol No. 2 to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture

and inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment

10 May 1995 (s), 17.09.97 (r)

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading

Treatment or Punishment

25.01.88 (s), 02.08.88 (r) Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages

15.08.89 (a)

International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing

20 May 1999 (s), 30 May 2002 (r)

International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of

Terrorism

27.09.01 (s), 28.06.02 (r)

International Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of

Aircraft

16 Dec 1970 (s), 17.04.73 (r)

International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes

Against International Protected Persons

6 Mar 1998 (r) Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

[European] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and

Fundamental Freedoms

4 Now 1950 (s), 18 May 1954 (r)

Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and

Fundamental Freedoms

20 Mar 1952 (s), 22.06.53 (r)

Protocol No.2 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

6 May 1963 (s), 25 Mar 1968 (r)

Protocol No.3 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

6 May 1963 (s), 25 Mar 1968 (r)

Protocol No.4 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

19 Oct 1962 Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

Protocol No.5 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

14 May 1971 (s), 20 Dec 1971 (r)

Protocol No.6 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

15.01.03 (s)

Protocol No.7 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

14 Mar 1985

Protocol No. 8 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

04.02.86 (s), 19.09.89 (r) Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

Protocol No. 9 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

6 Now 1990 (s)

Protocol No. 10 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

28.02.96 (s), 5 May 1998 (r)

Protocol No. 11 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

28.02.96 (s), 5 May 1998 (r)

Protocol No. 12 to the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of

Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms

04.11.00 (s) Key: s for signature; r for ratification; a for accession

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1949.[16]

The European Convention on Human Rights (1954) places Turkey under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In 1987, Turkey accepted the right to apply individually to the ECtHR (Article 25 of the European Convention on Human Rights = ECHR) and 1990 recognised the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights under Article 46 of the ECHR.[17] In October 2009 the European Commission on Enlargement to the European Union attested regarding Turkey that some progress on observance of international human rights law. However, implementation of some ECtHR judgments requiring legislative amendments has been outstanding for several years. Further efforts are needed to strengthening the institutional framework on human rights, in particular as regards the establishment of an independent human rights institution and of an Ombudsman.[18] On October 18, 2017, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland called for the release of human rights activists detained in Turkey in a telephone call with Turkish Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül.[18]

European Court of Human Rights judgments

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (August 2026) Number of judgments made by the ECtHR with at least one violation.[19] The year is not representative for the human rights situation in that year, as cases may date back for many years. Year Decision 2001 169 2002 54 2003 76 2004 154 2005 270 2006 312 2007 319 2008 257 2009 341 2010 228 2011 159 2012 117 2013 118 2014 94 2015 79 2016 77 2017 99 2018 104 2019 96 Turkey's human rights record has long continued to attract scrutiny, both internally and externally. According to the Foreign Ministry, Turkey was sentenced to 33 million euros in 567 different cases between 1990—when Turkey effectively allowed individual applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)—and 2006.[20] Most abuses were done in the South-East, in the frame of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict.[20] In 2007, there were 2830 applications lodged against the Republic of Turkey before the ECtHR and consequently 331 judgments on the merits have been issued affirming 319 violations and 9 non-violations.[21] In 2008, Turkey ranked second after Russia in the list of countries with the largest number of human rights violation cases open at the European Court of Human Rights, with 9,000 cases pending as of August 2008.[20] In 2011, the ECtHR issued 159 judgments that found violations by Turkey, the most of any country, with Russia coming second at 121 judgments.[22] Between 1 November 1998 and 31 December 2008 the ECtHR received 24,945 applications from Turkey. It declared 2,237 cases admissible and 13,615 inadmissible.[23] During the same time it reached 1,905 judgments finding at least one violation in 1,652 cases.[23] While there were few decisions regarding Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ban of discrimination), many judgments concerning Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 of the convention (ban of torture) were taken on procedural grounds rather than testifying an involvement of State agencies.[24] According to the European Commission on Enlargement of the EU Turkey continued to make progress on the execution of ECtHR judgments. All pecuniary compensation was paid on time, totalling €5.2 million in 2008.[25] The ECtHR has heard nine cases against Turkey concerning political party bans by the Constitutional Court of Turkey.[26] In all but one case (which concerned the Islamist Welfare Party), the European Court has ruled against the decision to ban, finding Turkey in violation of articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention (freedom of expression and freedom of association).[26] The ECtHR's decision concerning the Welfare Party has been criticized for lack of consistency with its other decisions, in particular by Human Rights Watch.[26] One ECtHR judgment sentenced Turkey to a 103,000 euros fine for its decisions about the Yüksekova Gang (aka "the gang with uniforms"), related to the JİTEM clandestine gendarmerie intelligence unit.[20] The ECtHR also sentenced in 2006 Turkey to a 28,500 Euros fine for the JİTEM murder of 72-year-old Kurdish writer Musa Anter, in 1992 in Diyarbakir.[20] Other cases include the 2000 Akkoç v. Turkey judgment, concerning the assassination of a trade-unionist; or the Loizidou v. Turkey case in 1996, which set a precedent in the Cyprus dispute, as the ECtHR ordered Turkey to give financial compensation to a person expelled from the Turkish-controlled side of Cyprus.

The ECtHR also awarded in 2005 Kurdish deputy Leyla Zana €9000 from the Turkish government, ruling Turkey had violated her rights of free expression. Zana, who had been recognized as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and had been awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, had been jailed in 1994, allegedly for being a member of the outlawed PKK, but really for having spoken Kurdish in public during her parliamentary oath.

The right to live

The right to live may be threatened by other means than the death penalty. In particular during the 1990s there were many instances of extrajudicial executions, (political) killings by unidentified perpetrators (faili meçhul cinayetler) and cases of "disappearances".

Capital punishment

Main article: Capital punishment in Turkey The death penalty has not been implemented in Turkey since 1984. Turkey abolished the sentence for peace time offences in 2002 and for all offences in 2004. The sentence was replaced by aggravated life imprisonment (ağırlaştırılmış müebbet hapis cezası). According to Article 9 of Law 5275 on the Execution of Sentences[27] these prisoners are held in individual cells in high security prisons and are allowed to exercise in a neighbouring yard one hour per day. They have more limited access to activities and they are not allowed to work.[28]

Extrajudicial executions

Further information: List of journalists killed in Turkey and List of assassinated people from Turkey See also: Assassination of Hrant Dink and Attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II In 1990 Amnesty International published its first report on extrajudicial executions in Turkey.[29] In the following years the problem became more serious. The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey determined the following figures on extrajudicial executions in Turkey for the years 1991 to 2001:[30] 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 98 283 189 129 96 129 98 80 63 56 37 In 2001 the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Ms. Asma Jahangir, presented a report on a visit to Turkey.[31] The report presented details of killings of prisoners (26 September 1999, 10 prisoners killed in a prison in Ankara; 19 December 2000, an operation in 20 prisons launched throughout Turkey resulted in the death of 30 inmates and two gendarmes).

For the years 2000–2008 the Human Rights Association (HRA) gives the following figures on doubtful deaths/deaths in custody/extra judicial execution/torture by paid village guards[32] 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 173 55 40 44 47 89 130 66 65 In 2008 the human rights organization Mazlum Der counted 25 extrajudicial killings in Turkey.[33]

Unsolved killings

The mass violations of human rights in the mainly Kurdish-populated southeast and eastern regions of Turkey in the 1990s took the form of enforced disappearances and killings by unknown perpetrators which the state authorities showed no willingness to solve.[34] In 2009 the Human Rights Association stated that up to the end of 2008 a total of 2,949 people had been killed by unknown perpetrators and 2,308 people had become victims of extrajudicial executions.[35] A parliamentary commission to research killings by unknown perpetrators (faili meçhul cinayetleri araştırma komisyonu) was founded in 1993 and worked for about two years. Many members complained that they had not been assisted and their work had been undermined.[36] One member of the commission, Eyüp Aşık, stated that the Turkish Hezbollah had been behind many of these killings and added that the State had had three effective arms in the fight against terrorism: special teams, village guards and Hezbollah. Although he had witnessed about 80 actions of Hezbollah in Adıyaman province the then Minister for the Interior had said that there was nothing by that name. This in turn had made him believe that the State supported Hezbollah.[36] Human Rights Watch (HRW) first called for an investigation of links between Hezbollah and the security forces in 1992.[37] In a separate report HRW stated: During 1992 there was an extremely disturbing increase in the number of suspicious deaths in southeast Turkey. Hundreds of people were killed by unknown assailants; many of those people were leaders or in positions of responsibility in the Kurdish community — doctors, lawyers, teachers, political leaders, journalists, human rights activists, businessmen... Human rights activists were among the victims. Thirteen of the suspicious killings since January 1992 were of journalists.[38] Based on the data of the Interior Ministry, the daily "Zaman" reported that between 1987 and 2001 a total of 2,914 political killings, 1,334 of them in the responsibility area of the police and 1,580 in area of the gendarmerie, were committed in the Eastern and Southern Eastern Anatolia Regions. 457 of the killings in areas of the police and 1,291 in areas of the gendarmerie had not been clarified.[38] The following figures were presented in the annual reports of the HRFT between 1990 and 2001[38] Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 200 0 2001

Victims

11 31 362 467 423 166 113 65 45 52 13 24 The Human Rights Association (HRA) presents the following figures for the years 1999 to 2008:[39] Year 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Victims

212 145 160 75 50 47 1 20 42 29 The Human Rights Association Mazlumder presented figures on killing by unknown assailants and suspicious death for the years 2005 to 2008:[40] Year 2005 2006 2007 2008

Incident

170 138 384 315

Victims

203 167 373 343

"Disappearances"

Special bus placed close to the action of the Saturday Mothers In Turkey, the military campaign against Kurdish secessionists in Eastern Anatolia has been accompanied by numerous enforced disappearances, which also gave rise to judgments of the European Court of Human Rights to murder.[41] There were only a handful of cases of "disappearances" in Turkey in the 1980s, but a high number of deaths in custody.[42] The opposite was true for the 1990s, when the number of people who "disappeared" after having been abducted by agents of the States increased.[43] In 1998 the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances issued a Report on the visit to Turkey by two members of the Working Group from 20 to 26 September 1998. It stated inter alia: Most of the disappearances concerned persons of Kurdish ethnic origin and occurred in the provinces of Diyarbakir and Siirt, in south-east Anatolia, where the armed and security forces are combating the PKK and where a state of emergency is in force. Some of the reported disappearances took place in Antalya, İzmir and Istanbul. Most of the cases followed the same pattern: the missing persons had allegedly been arrested at their homes on charges of belonging to the PKK and taken to the police station but their detention was later denied by the authorities.[45] In her report of 18 December 2001 the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Ms.

Asma Jahangir, wrote: While the number of cases of abductions or "disappearances" have decreased over the last few years, at the time of the Special Rapporteur's visit such incidents still did occur, particularly in the remote areas of south-east Turkey, and there was deep concern at the recent disappearance of two persons.[31] In some places on the Internet a list attributed to the HRA can be found (but not on the website of the HRA). It is said that the original list contained 839 names, but that adding further names the list covered 1,251 names in the end.[44] In a revised list that covers only the time between 1980 and 1999 Helmut Oberdiek reached a figure of 818 cases of "disappearances" in Turkey.[45] The Saturday Mothers held weekly protests against "disappearances" between May 1995 and 1999.[46] They had to suspend their action on 13 March 1999[47] after week 200, because of intense pressure, detention and ill-treatment.[48] In March 2009 the Saturday Mothers took their action up again.[49]

Torture

Main article: Torture in Turkey The widespread and systematic use of torture in Turkey was first observed by Amnesty International (AI) after the 1971 Turkish coup d'état.[50] Until 2002 the organization continued to speak of systematic torture in Turkey.[51] Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enlargement of the European Union went to Turkey in September 2004 and maintained that torture was no longer systematic practice in Turkey.[52] The Human Rights Association (HRA) protested against this evaluation[53] and pointed at recent figures and definitions of systematic torture by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the UN Committee against Torture.[54] Since 2005 incidents of torture seem to be on the rise.[55] According to an October report by the Prime Ministry's Human Rights Presidency (HRP), the number of torture and cruel treatment cases reported in the first six months of the year surpassed the number reported in the first half of 2007. The HRP reported that, in the first half of the year, 178 persons reported cruel treatment and 26 reported torture, up from 79 reports of cruel treatment and 17 reports of torture during the same period in 2007.[56] In the report on progress of November 2008 the European Commission stated, "the number of applications to NGOs in relation to cases of torture and ill-treatment has increased, in particular outside official places of detention, notably during apprehension, transfer, or in the open with no detention registered... There is a lack of prompt, impartial and independent investigation into allegations of human rights violations by members of security forces."[57] In the 2009 annual report Amnesty International stated: "Reports of torture and other ill-treatment rose during 2008, especially outside official places of detention but also in police stations and prisons."[58] In its 2012 Annual Review, Freedom from Torture the UK charity which works with survivors of victims of torture, stated that the charity had received 79 referrals of individuals from Turkey for clinical treatment and other services.[59]

Deaths in custody

An important characteristic of the period following the 12 September 1980 military intervention was the disregard to the right to life and the increase in torture cases and deaths due to torture.[60] The HRFT published two reports on Deaths in Custody (14 and 15 years since the military take over) presenting a list of 419 deaths in custody (in 15 years) with a suspicion that torture might have been the reason. Another 15 deaths were attributed to hunger strikes while medical neglect was given as the reason for 26 deaths.[61] On the basis of this list Helmut Oberdiek compiled a revised list for 20 years (12 September 1980 to 12 September 2000) and concluded that in 428 cases torture may have been the reason for the death of prisoners.[62] In 2008 alone the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey reported of 39 deaths in prison. In some cases torture was involved.[63] In 2012, two prison guards and an official were given life sentences for the torture death of activist Engin Çeber, the first such verdict in Turkey's history.[64] In 2016, teacher Gökhan Açıkkollu died in police custody, with human rights organizations alleging his death was a result of torture.[65] In 2018, teacher Halime Gülsu, who suffered from lupus, died in prison after being denied access to her essential medication, with human rights organizations attributing her death to medical neglect.[66]

Poor living conditions in Turkish prisons

Turkey has repeatedly been criticized for allowing poor living conditions to exist in its prisons and in particular, it has been criticized for not doing anything to solve the problem of overcrowded prisons.[67] Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état political prisoners tried in military courts were held in military prisons and were thus subjected to military discipline. Prisoners were obliged to participate in daily roll-calls, the singing of marches and drills in the open air.[68] In particular, Diyarbakır and Mamak Military Prisons (the latter in Ankara) became notorious for the routine beatings which accompanied attempts to enforce military discipline among civilians. In addition, so-called "inaugural-beatings" had been institutionalized in almost all prisons in Turkey.[68] In 2008, allegations of ill-treatment in prisons and allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners during their transfers continued to be made. Small-group isolation remained a problem across the prison system for people who were accused or convicted of politically motivated offences.[69] The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey registered 39 deaths in prison.[70] In March 2020, following the publication of reports which documented the life-threatening living conditions which existed in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Turkey published a draft of a document in which it stated that it was preparing to release 100,000 inmates. However, Amnesty International and several other human rights organizations stated that they were still concerned about journalist and human rights defenders, who as per the government's perceived policies, will remain behind bars.[71]

Treatment of Elderly and Chronically Ill Prisoners

Elderly and sick prisoners in Turkey have been subject to grave mistreatment and lack of compassion and care from prison officials, according to human rights activists and lawyers. There have been many cases where despite appeals for a medical suspension, ill prisoners have endured terrible conditions in prison and died in prison custody after the failed coup of 2016.[72] A prominent case illustrating these systemic issues is that of Nusret Muğla, an 84-year-old retired tradesman and philanthropist from Manisa, who died in prison on February 13, 2022.[73] Muğla was sentenced to six years and three months in prison on charges related to his accounts at Bank Asya and membership in a local association, acts rooted in activities from decades prior.

Though he was a victim of numerous illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, rheumatism, prostatic diseases, kidney ailments, and balance disorders, for which he had to consume fourteen different medicines on a daily basis, his request for medical exemption was denied by the concerned authorities, and his forensic medicine reports establishing his vulnerable state of mind were not endorsed either.[74] He was made to stay at the Manisa Type T Prison in sub-par conditions like lack of heating in the rooms during winter, overcrowdedness, and poor medical facilities, where he had to depend on a wheelchair or help in order to move around.

Muğla's death sparked widespread public outcry and political condemnation. Politicians, including human rights defender and parliamentarian Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu and Sezgin Tanrıkulu, criticized the authorities, describing such deaths in custody as preventable tragedies resulting from administrative and judicial indifference.[75] Furthermore, his longtime friend and former Parliament Speaker Bülent Arınç publicly expressed remorse over the systemic inability to secure justice or compassionate release for elderly prisoners, emphasizing that imprisonment under such conditions violates basic human dignity.

Freedom of religion

Main article: Freedom of religion in Turkey See also: Religion in Turkey, Conservatism in Turkey, and 1942 wealth tax in Turkey Turkey self-identifies as a secular country, as detailed by Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution. Islam is the predominant religion, with the two main sects being Sunni and Alevi. In Turkey Alevi are the minority, estimated at 17 percent of the Muslim population.[8] Religious education is compulsory in primary and secondary education (Article 24 of the Constitution). Mainly Sunni theology is taught.[76][77] The government oversees Muslim religious facilities and education through its Directorate of Religious Affairs, which is under the authority of the Prime Ministry. The Directory regulates the operation of the country's 77,777 registered mosques and employs local and provincial imams, who are civil servants. Sunni imams are nominated and paid by the state.[78] The Alevis pray in cemevis. "Cemevleri" (places of gathering) have no legal status as places of worship in the state. However, Kuşadası and Tunceli municipalities ruled in 2008 that Alevi cemevleri are considered places of worship.[56] Exact figures on the non-Islamic population in Turkey are not available. Some sources estimate the Christian population between three and five percent.[8] Their communities mainly exist in Istanbul with Armenian and Greek-Orthodox Christians; in southeastern Turkey other groups like the Syriacs and Yazidi (a syncretistic faith) can be found. In the big cities Jewish and other communities such as the Jehovah's Witnesses exist.[8] According to the Treaty of Lausanne only the Armenian, Greek and Jewish communities are recognized as minorities.

According to the human rights organization Mazlumder, the military charged individuals with lack of discipline for activities that included performing Muslim prayers or being married to women who wore headscarves. In December 2008 the General Staff issued 24 dismissals, five of which pertained to alleged Islamic fundamentalism.[56][57] In 2022, Freedom House rated Turkey's religious freedom as 2 out of 4,[79] noting that apart from Sunni Islam, Judaism, Orthodox Christianity and Armenian Christianity are officially recognized, but there are regular disputes regarding property and training of clerics. [citation needed]

Freedom of expression

See also: Censorship in Turkey Article 26 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression. Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution guarantee the "freedom of expression" and "unhindered dissemination of thought". Paragraph 2 of Article 27 affirms that "the right to disseminate shall not be exercised for the purpose of changing the provisions of Articles 1, 2 and 3 of [the] Constitution", articles in question referring to the unitary, secular, democratic and republican nature of the state.

Law 765 (the old penal code) that entered into force on 1 March 1926 restricted freedom of expression, despite several amendments.[80] Law 5237 that replaced the old penal code on 1 June 2005 preserved several provisions that restrict freedom of thought and expression.[80] A number of special laws such as the Law 5816 (offences against the memory of Atatürk), Press Law and the Law on Political Parties also restrict freedom of expression.[81] In the 1970s and 1980s the Articles 141 (membership of communist organizations), 142 (communist or separatist propaganda) and 163 (membership of or propaganda for anti-secular organizations) of Law 765 (the Turkish Penal Code, TPC) were most frequently used to punish peaceful opposition.[81] On 12 April 1991 Law 3713 on the Fight against Terrorism (or Anti-Terror Law, ATL) entered into force. It abolished these provisions, but retained part of Article 142 TPC in Article 8 ATL.[80] Journalists, politicians, human rights defenders and trade unionists were convicted under this provision, often simply for having used the word "Kurdistan".[82] After the European Court of Human Rights had passed more than 100 judgments finding a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights some changes were made to existing legislation.[83] Article 8 of the ATL was abolished by Law 4928 of 30 July 2003. Another frequently used Article 312/2 of the TPC (incitement to hatred and enmity) was amended by Law 4744 of 9 February 2002. The new version narrowed the use of this Article by introducing the condition "if the incitement might endanger public order". The new wording (and sentences) for such an "offence" are now contained in Article 216 of Law 5237. The sentence that mere criticism should not be punishable under Article 159 of Law 765 (denigrating Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey) was added to the law text, although this had already been established in the case law. The "offence" is now described in Article 301 of Law 5237.

After severe criticism from NGOs and European institutions Article 301 was once again amended on 30 April 2008. The amendments introduced a requirement for permission to be obtained from the Justice Minister in order to launch a criminal investigation.[57] Human Rights Watch reported on July 26, 2017, that over the past year, hundreds of outlets have been shuttered or taken over under state of emergency powers. More than 160 journalists and media workers are now in prison or pretrial detention, according to Turkish media watchdog NGO P24. They include 10 of the Cumhuriyet staff currently on trial.[84] Following the adoption of the amendments to Article 301, Turkish courts had forwarded, by September 2008, 257 cases to the Minister of Justice for prior authorisation. The Minister had reviewed 163 cases and refused to grant permission to proceed in 126 cases.[57] The Minister of Justice authorised the criminal investigations to continue in 37 cases. This included one case which was initiated following a statement made by a Turkish writer on the Armenian issue shortly after the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink.[57] Other legal provisions that restrict freedom of expression include Articles 215, 216 and 217 of the Turkish Criminal Code, that criminalise offences against public order, and the Anti-Terror Law have been applied to prosecute and convict those expressing non-violent opinions on Kurdish issues.[57][85][86][87] The use of the Turkish alphabet is mandated by law, reflecting the historic transition from an Arabic to a Latin script.

[citation needed] According to the Human Rights Watch 2019 report, Turkey has the maximum number of jailed journalists. In February 2018, prominent journalists Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan and Nazlı Ilıcak were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on the couped charges.[88] On 3 July 2020, in a high-profile trial, a Turkish court sentenced the honorary chair of Amnesty International Turkey, Taner Kilic, to six years and three months in jail, accusing him for being a member of terror organization. The organization's former director İdil Eser was also sentenced to two years and one month, along with members Günal Kursun and Özlem Dalgiran, on same charges. The human rights group denied all the charges. Human rights organizations claimed that holding individuals charged with terrorism offenses in prolonged pre-trial detention continued to be widely used in Turkey and raised concerns regarding it becoming a form of summary punishment.[89] On 21 February 2022, the Human Rights Watch reported that Öztürk Türkdoğan, co-chair of the Human Rights Association (Turkey), was prosecuted for his legitimate human rights work. Ankara prosecutors prepared three indictments against Türkdoğan in a single month for speeches and statements that do not advocate violence. On March 19, 2021, police briefly detained Türkdoğan from his home and confiscating his laptop and phone. He was later released with a travel ban imposed on him.[90] On 25 June 2022, the Amnesty International reported that Turkish authorities detained the head of the Human Rights Association, Öztürk Türkdoğan, prominent human rights lawyer, Eren Keskin, and several relatives of victims of enforced disappearances from the Saturday Mothers/People 900th vigil. The authorities also prevented a peaceful vigil by human rights defenders demonstrating on behalf of people who have been forcibly disappeared in Turkey.[91] On 14 October 2022, the OHCHR expressed concern over the adoption by Turkiye's Parliament of a package of amendments to various laws “that risk curtailing freedom of expression” in the country. One of the amendments was a revision of the criminal code that establishes sentences of up to three years in prison for “publicly disseminating false information” on digital platforms. Under international human rights law, freedom of expression is not limited to ‘truthful’ information, but applies to ‘information and ideas of all kinds'.[92] On 26 October 2022, Turkish authorities arrested and detained the head of Turkey's medical association, Şebnem Korur Fincancı. Her arrest was linked to a statement she made in the press on the occasion of a conference she gave in Germany on 19 October 2022, about allegations of the use of chemical weapon by Turkey in Kurdistan regional federation of Iraq.[93]

Freedom of the media

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the AKP government has waged one of the world's biggest crackdowns on media freedom.[94][95] Many journalists have been arrested using charges of "terrorism" and "anti-state activities" such as the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases, while thousands have been investigated on charges such as "denigrating Turkishness" or "insulting Islam" in an effort to sow self-censorship.[94] In 2017, the CPJ identified 81 jailed journalists in Turkey (including the editorial staff of Cumhuriyet, Turkey's oldest newspaper still in circulation), all directly held for their published work (ranking first in the world in 2017, with more journalists in prison than in Iran, Eritrea or China);[95] while in 2015 Freemuse identified nine musicians imprisoned for their work (ranking third in that year after Russia and China).[9] In 2015 Turkey's media was rated as not free by Freedom House.[10] In its resolution "The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey" on 22 June 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned that "recent developments in Turkey pertaining to freedom of the media and of expression, erosion of the rule of law and the human rights violations in relation to anti-terrorism security operations in south-east Turkey have (...) raised serious questions about the functioning of its democratic institutions."[96] On 29 April 2017, Turkish authorities blocked online access to Wikipedia in all languages across Turkey.[97][98] The restrictions were imposed in the context of the purges that followed the coup attempt, a few weeks after a significant constitutional referendum, and following more selective partial blocking of Wikipedia content in previous years.[99] Following the ban, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder, was disinvited from the World Cities Expo in Istanbul from 15 to 18 May.[100] Turkish law professor Yaman Akdeniz estimated that Wikipedia was one of about 127,000 websites blocked by Turkish authorities. An estimated 45 percent of Turks have circumvented the Internet blocks, at one time or another, by using a virtual private network (VPN).[101] On 15 January 2020 access started being progressively restored, after the Constitutional Court ruled that the ban violated freedom of expression, 991 days after the block had started.[102][103]

2016 coup crackdown

Main article: 2016–present purges in Turkey Turkish journalists protesting imprisonment of their colleagues on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2016 After the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a state of emergency and began an ideological purge of government and civil society. The government blamed its former ally the Gülen movement for the coup, and had declared it a terrorist organization in late 2015. The purge was criticized internationally, including by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who also condemned the coup attempt. Critics said the Turkish government was using terrorist affiliation as a pretense to suppress dissent and punish political opponents of Erdoğan generally.[104] Following the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016, hundreds of thousands suspected of ties to the Gülen movement faced serious human rights abuses.Fethullah Gülen, founder of the movement, died on 20 October 2024 in the United States, where he had resided in self-imposed exile since 1999.[105] He denied involvement in the coup and advocated for an impartial international inquiry before his death.[106][107] Reports show that many activities later criminalized were lawful prior to the coup, with most detainees lacking substantial evidence against them.Numerous suspects were denied legal representation, faced severe constraints on their defense rights, and suffered ill-treatment or torture in custody. Dismissed public officials were publicly listed, resulting in social and economic ostracism.[108] In August 2020, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances reported that at least 100 individuals alleged to be associated with the Gülen movement were subjected to arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture.[109] The government has alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement or with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (also listed as a terrorist organization) as a reason for firings and arrests. The purge has resulted in the dismissal of tens of thousands of government employees, including thousands of police and teachers. Arrests have included thousands of members of the military; about a third of the judges in the country; Kurdish activists, mayors, governors, and members of parliament, especially those affiliated with the HDP (which opposed the coup); and journalists. More than 50,000 people have been arrested and over 160,000 fired from their jobs.[110] Various television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses were shut down, and tens of thousands of passports were revoked. A lot of international media attention and international diplomatic negotiations followed the arrest of ten Human Right's defenders in July 2017, and they became known internationally as the Istanbul 10. Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey between April 2017 and January 2020.

Conscientious objection

There is currently no provision for conscientious objection. Article 72 of the Turkish Constitution states: "National service is the right and duty of every Turk. The manner in which this service shall be performed, or considered as performed, either in the Armed Forces or in public service, shall be regulated by law." This in principle would allow for a non-military alternative.[111] Turkey, Belarus and Azerbaijan are the only European countries that have not introduced any legislation on conscientious objection.[112] In January 2006, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights that prohibits degrading treatment in a case relating to Osman Murat Ulke, the first conscientious objector to be imprisoned for his objection.[113] Another conscientious objector, Mehmet Tarhan, was sentenced to four years in prison by a military court in 2005 for refusing to do his military service, but he was later released in March 2006. However, he is still a convict and shall be arrested on sight. [citation needed]In a related case, journalist Perihan Mağden was tried and acquitted by a Turkish court for supporting Tarhan and advocating conscientious objection as a human right.

Since 1989, 74 people have refused to perform compulsory military service in Turkey. Only six of them have been tried for being a conscientious objector or sent to the military unit they were assigned to after being captured.[114] COs may be punished under Article 63 of the Turkish Military Penal Code for avoiding military service. COs who attract media attention or publish articles about their refusal to perform military service may also be punished to between six months’ and two years' imprisonment under Article 318 of the Turkish Criminal Code for "alienating the people from the armed forces". In 2004, a new Criminal Code was introduced (Law No 5237). Under the previous Criminal Code, "alienating people from the armed forces" was punishable under Article 155 with a similar term of imprisonment.[115] Members of Jehovah’s Witnesses have regularly been sentenced to imprisonment under Article 63 of the Penal Code for avoiding military service. For many years, conscientious objectors who are Jehovah’s Witnesses have faced repeated military call-ups, prosecutions, burdensome fines, and imprisonment. Since 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has issued three judgments in favor of the Witnesses, and in 2012, the UN Human Rights Committee released a favorable decision on this issue. However, Türkiye continues to prosecute young Witness men who refuse military service.[116] Muhammed Serdar Delice, a young Muslim, declared his conscientious objection to military service in 2011 and argued that his objection was based on his Muslim faith. After serving a few months in the Armed Forces he claimed that he had experienced disrespectful interference with his religious practice, as well as indoctrination about Turkey's three-decade-old war with Kurdish insurgents.[117] Most Kurds are fellow Muslims.

Further instances of imprisonment included

Halil Savda: He was sentenced to 21.5 months imprisonment[118]

Mehmet Bal: He was repeatedly imprisoned in 2002, 2003 and 2008.[119] He was allegedly beaten in prison.[120] The Council of Europe and the United Nations have regularly called upon Turkey to legally recognise the right to conscientious objection. In March 2004, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated that: "Despite Turkey's geostrategic position, the Assembly demands that Turkey recognises the right to conscientious objection and introduce an alternative civilian service."[115] In September 2009 the Turkish press reported that the Turkish government is considering creating regulations regarding conscientious objectors. According to the amendment planned on the issue, those refusing to perform compulsory military service will no longer be forcibly drafted to the military while they are under detention and will be able to be defended by a lawyer while being tried. They will also be able to benefit from the Probation Law.[114]

Freedom of assembly

Article 34 of the 1982 Constitute (as amended on October 17, 2001) states, "Everyone has the right to hold unarmed and peaceful meetings and demonstration marches without prior permission." Restrictions may only be introduced on the grounds of national security, and public order, or prevention of crime commitment, public health and public morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Article 3 of Law 2911 on demonstrations and meeting provides, "Everybody has the right to hold unarmed and peaceful assembly without prior permission."[121] Nevertheless, Amnesty International stated in 2009 that the right to freedom of peaceful assembly was denied, and law enforcement officials used excessive force to disperse demonstrations.[122] Deaths due to excessive police force during demonstrations have a long history in Turkey. They include

Newroz 1992: The Newroz festivities left at least 91 people dead in three towns of the southeast, Cizre, Şırnak and Nusaybin, and 9 others elsewhere in the region, and according to Helsinki Watch, 'all or nearly all of the casualties resulted from unprovoked, unnecessary and unjustified attacks by Turkish security forces against peaceful Kurdish civilian demonstrators'.[126]

Funeral of PKK militants at the end of March 2006: 13 people were killed in Diyarbakir and further places[131] In July 2017 Turkey arrested in the eve of the G20 summit in Hamburg from ‘digital security and information management workshop’ 12 persons. They included Idil Eser, head of Amnesty International Turkey, Peter Steudtner, a hotel owner and a Swedish and German trainee. Activists detained included Ilknur Üstün of the Women's Coalition, lawyer Günal Kursun and Veli Acu of the Human Rights Agenda Association.[132]

Freedom of association

See also: Trade unions in Turkey The law provides for freedom of association. Under the law persons organizing an association do not need to notify authorities beforehand, but an association must provide notification before interacting with international organizations or receiving financial support from abroad, and must provide detailed documents on such activities.[56] The Constitution affirms the right of workers to form labor unions "without obtaining permission" and "to possess the right to become a member of a union and to freely withdraw from membership" (Article 51). Articles 53 and 54 affirm the right of workers to bargain collectively and to strike, respectively.

Until March 2008 a total of 26 political parties had been banned, two of them before the Constitutional Court (the place where such decisions are taken) was established on 25 April 1962.[133] This figure does not include the 18 political parties that were banned immediately after the 1980 coup d'état and dissolved on 16 October 1981. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey passed Law 2533 on 19 June 1992 allowing these parties to be opened again.[134] The Foundation for social, economic and political research (TESAV) has detailed information on the closure of political parties. They list ten political parties (instead of two) that were closed before the Constitutional Court was established.[135] The details are (in collapsible tables) 1. political parties closed before the Constitutional Court was founded: No.

Name (en) Name (tr) founded closed HQ 1 Democrat Party Demokrat Parti 07 Jan 1946 29 Sep 1960 Ankara 2 Peasants and Villagers Party Çiftçi ve Köylü Partisi 24 Apr 1946 02 Jun 1946 Bursa 3 Turkey Socialist Party Türkiye Sosyalist Partisi 14 May 1946 1952 İstanbul 4 Nation Party Millet Partisi 20 Jul 1948 27 Jan 1954 Ankara 5 Democratic Workers' Party Demokrat İşçi Partisi 26 Sep 1950 1950 İstanbul 6 Ruling Party Güden Partisi 14 Jul 1951 1951 İstanbul 7 Islamic Democrat Party İslam Demokrat Partisi 01 Aug 1951 1952 İstanbul 8 Fatherland's Party Vatan Partisi 22 Oct 1954 1966 İstanbul 9 Small Party Ufak Parti 23 May 1957 1957 Erzurum 10 Equality Party Müsavat Partisi 13 Feb 1961 1961 İstanbul 2. Political parties closed by the Constitutional Court No.

Name (en) Name (tr) founded closed 1 Turkey Workers' Party Türkiye İşçi Partisi 13 Feb 1961 20 Jul 1971 2 Workers – Peasants Party İşçi – Çiftçi Partisi 30 Mar 1961 15 Oct 1968 3 Turkey Progressive Ideal Party Türkiye İleri Ülkü Partisi 06 May 1969 29 Jun 1971 4 Great Anatolia Party Büyük Anadolu Partisi 05 Nov 1969 19 Dec 1972 5 National Order Party Milli Nizam Partisi 26 Jan 1970 20 May 1971 6 Turkey Labourer Party Türkiye Emekçi Partisi 12 Feb 1975 08 May 1980 7 Welfare Party Refah Partisi 19 Jul 1983 16 Jan 1998 8 Turkey Comfort Party Türkiye Huzur Partisi 22 Jul 1983 25 Oct 1983 9 Socialist Party Sosyalist Parti 01 Feb 1988 10 Jul 1992 10 Green Party Yeşiller Partisi 06 Jun 1988 10 Feb 1994 11 People Party Halk Partisi 20 Dec 1989 24 Sep 1991 12 Revival Party Diriliş Partisi 26 Mar 1990 18 Feb 1997 13 Turkey United Communist Party Türkiye Birleşik Komünist Partisi 04 Jun 1990 16 Jul 1991 14 People's Labour Party Halkın Emek Partisi 07 Jun 1990 14 Jul 1993 15 Socialist Union Party Sosyalist Birlik Partisi 15 Jan 1991 19 Jul 1995 16 Freedom and Democracy Party Özgürlük ve Demokrasi Partisi 19 Oct 1992 23 Nov 1993 17 Socialist Turkey Party Sosyalist Türkiye Partisi 06 Nov 1992 30 Nov 1993 18 Democrat Party Demokrat Parti 12 Dec 1992 13 Sep 1994 19 Democracy Party Demokrasi Partisi 07 May 1993 16 Jun 1994 20 Democracy and Change Party Demokrasi ve Değişim Partisi 03 Apr 1995 19 Mar 1996 21 Labour Party Emek Partisi 25 Mar 1996 14 Feb 1997 22 Democratic Mass Party Demokratik Kitle Partisi 03 Jan 1997 26 Feb 1999 23 Virtue Party Fazilet Partisi 18 Dec 1997 22 Jun 2001 24 People's Democracy Party Halkın Demokrasi Partisi 11 May 1994 13 Mar 2003 27[136] Democratic Society Party Demokratik Toplum Partisi 09 Nov 2005 12 Dec 2009 For the number of associations, trade unions, political parties and cultural centres that were closed down or raided the Human Rights Association presented the following figure for the years 1999 to 2008:[137] 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Closure

169 130 146 127 47 13 5 6 13 11

Raids

266 156 216 83 88 35 7 48 36 103

Ethnic rights

See also: Demographics of Turkey and Minorities in Turkey Turkey is ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse. It is populated with Turks, Kurds and Armenians, Alevis, Ezidis, Assyrians, Laz, Caferis, Roma, Greeks, Caucasians and Jews. The state has been criticised for its nationalistic repression of minorities.[138] Turkey is described as an ethnocracy by multiple scholars.[139][140][141][142] Nationalism has functioned as a dominant ideological framework in Turkey, enabling the marginalization of three officially recognized non-Muslim minorities—the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews—as well as the assimilation, colonial subjugation, and at times ethnic cleansing of non-Turkish Muslim groups.[139] Bilge Azgın points to government policies whose goals are the "exclusion, marginalization, or assimilation" of minority groups that are non-Turkish as the defining elements of Turkish ethnocracy. Jack Fong describes Turkey's policy of referring to its Kurdish minority as "mountain Turks" and its refusal to acknowledge any separate Kurdish identity as elements of the Turkish ethnocracy.

According to Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution, "everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk". The Constitution affirms the principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish nation, nation state[143] and of constitutional citizenship that is not based on ethnicity. Consequently, the word "Turkish" legally refers to all citizens of Turkey, though individual interpretation can be more limited. According to the constitution, there are no minority rights since all citizens are Turks. This constitutional article ignores the basic ethnic and religious minority rights. Although the Treaty of Lausanne, before the proclamation of the Republic, guarantees some rights to non-Muslim minorities, in practice Turkey has recognised only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and excluded other non-Muslim groups, such as Assyrians and Yazidis, from the minority status and these rights.[144] Advocacy for protection of minorities' rights can lead to legal prosecutions as a number of provisions in Turkish law prohibits creation of minorities or alleging existence of minorities, such as Article 81 of the Law on Political Parties.

Kurdish people

Main article: Human rights of Kurdish people in Turkey

Party

Year banned

People's Labor Party (HEP) 1993 Freedom and Democracy Party (ÖZDEP) 1993 Democracy Party (DEP) 1994 People's Democracy Party (HADEP) 2003 Democratic Society Party (DTP) 2009 Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, some Kurdish tribes, which were still feudal (manorial) communities led by chieftains (ağa), became discontent about certain aspects of Atatürk's reforms aiming to modernise the country, such as secularism (the Sheikh Said rebellion, 1925)[146] and land reform (the Dersim rebellion, 1937–1938),[147] and staged armed revolts that were put down with military operations.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States,[148] the European Union[149] and NATO[150]) was founded in 1978 by a group of Kurdish militants led by Abdullah Öcalan, seeking the foundation of an independent, Marxist–Leninist state in the region, which was to be known as Kurdistan.[151] A full-scale insurgency began in 1984, when the PKK announced a Kurdish uprising. Since the conflict began, more than 40,000 people have died, most of whom were Turkish Kurds.[152] Following the arrest and imprisonment of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999,[153][154] the PKK modified its demands into equal rights for ethnic Kurds and provincial autonomy within Turkey.[155] Due to the large population of Kurdish people, successive governments have viewed the expression of a Kurdish identity as a potential threat to Turkish unity, a feeling that has been compounded since the armed rebellion initiated by the PKK in 1984. One of the main accusations of cultural assimilation comes from the state's historic suppression of the Kurdish language. Kurdish publications created throughout the 1960s and 1970s were shut down under various legal pretexts.[156] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited from government institutions.[157] The letters W, X or Q present in the Hawar alphabet are not recognized.[157] Between 1959 and 2011, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the thousands of human rights abuses against Kurdish people.[158][159] Many judgments are related to cases such as civilian deaths in aerial bombardments,[160] torturing,[161] forced displacements,[162] destroyed villages,[163][164][165] arbitrary arrests,[166] murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists, activists and politicians.[167] Since 2002, as part of its reforms aimed at European Union integration and under pressure to further the rights of Kurds, Turkey passed laws allowing Kurdish radio and television broadcasts as well the option of private Kurdish education.[168] In 2010 a master level and in 2011 a graduate level university program were started and a Kurdish Language and Literature Department was established in the state-owned Mardin Artuklu University.[169][170] [verification needed] In August 2009, the Turkish government restored the Kurdish name of one Kurdish village, and was considering allowing religious sermons to be made in Kurdish in rural villages as part of reforms to answer the grievances of the ethnic minority and advance its EU candidacy.[171] 2015–16 Şırnak clashes [improve caption] More than 4,000 Kurds were arrested in 2011, including dozens of journalists and politicians. Mass trials of local deputies, mayors, academics and human rights activists have occurred in Diyarbakir. Hundreds of Kurds remain in pre-trial detention, some of them for many months.[172] In January 2013, the Turkish parliament passed a law that permits use of the Kurdish language in the courts, albeit with restrictions.[173][174] The law was passed by votes of the ruling AKP and the pro-Kurdish rights opposition party BDP, against criticism from the secularist CHP party and the nationalist MHP, with MHP and CHP [citation needed] deputies nearly coming to blows with BDP deputies over the law. In spite of their support in the parliament, the BDP was critical of the provision in the law that the defendants will pay for the translation fees and that the law applies only to spoken defense in court but not to a written defense or the pre-trial investigation.[175] According to one source[174] the law does not comply with EU standards. [which?] Deputy prime minister of Turkey Bekir Bozdağ replied to criticism of the law from both sides saying that the fees of defendants who does not speak Turkish will be paid by the state, while, those who speak Turkish yet prefer to speak in the court in another language will have to pay the fees themselves.[176] European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle welcomed the new law.[177] In February 2013, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during a meeting with Muslim opinion leaders that he had "positive views" about imams delivering sermons in Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic, according to the most widely spoken language among the mosque attendees. This move received support from Kurdish politicians and human rights groups.[178]

Minority languages

External videos Video of the TRT news station stopping the broadcast of a speech made in Kurdish by politician Ahmet Türk.[full citation needed] Following the interruption, the newscaster said, "since no language other than Turkish can be used in the parliament meetings according to the constitution of the Turkish Republic and the Political Parties Law, we had to stop our broadcast. We apologize to our viewers for this and continue our broadcast with the next news item scheduled."[181] Despite the improvement of minorities language rights in Turkey, the only language of instruction in the education system is Turkish language. Minority languages are illegal to use as a main languages in education. Minorities are allowed to study their languages only as a minor subject in private and public educational institutions. Until reforms that started in 2002, there were legal restrictions on publishing in minority languages, except for Greek, Armenian and Hebrew, which are the languages of minorities officially recognized by the Lausanne Treaty. Since September 2002, those minorities, too, have the right to operate private courses that teach any language spoken in Turkey.[179][180] Some of the Kurdish courses were closed down by their owners in 2005 due to their limitations and a lack of interest.[181] However, as of 2010, there were active Kurdish language minor subject courses with increasing number of students.[182] In 2010, state-owned Mardin Artuklu University started a master-level Kurdish language and literature ("Kurdology") program.[169] Dicle University, another Turkish state university in Diyarbakır, started to give Kurdish courses in June 2011.[183][184] In September 2011, the first undergraduate level Kurdish Language and Literature Department in Turkey was opened in the Mardin Artuklu University. According to the deputy rector of the university, this was not only the first university department on this subject in Turkey, but also the first one of the whole world.[170] NGOs have called on Turkey to adopt the definitions of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. If Turkey were to become a signatory to this treaty, it would have to accept and subsidise the education of minorities in their own first languages, and that for at least all the period of mandatory education. To this day 21 member states of the Council of Europe out of 49 have proceeded with ratification.[185] The state-owned TRT has been broadcasting short programmes in a number of minority languages, including Bosnian, Arabic, Kabardian and Kurdish, since July 2003.[186] The legal basis was the Regulation on the Language of Radio and Television Broadcasts of December 2002.[187] In the beginning TV programs were restricted to 45 minutes per day; radio programs had a limit of 60 minutes per day.[186] In June 2006 the restrictions were lifted for music and film programs in minority languages.[186] In the 21st century some reforms have taken place to improve the cultural rights of ethnic minorities in Turkey, such as the establishment of TRT Kurdî, TRT Arabi and TRT Avaz by the TRT.

Other discrimination

Main article: Xenophobia and discrimination in Turkey

Women

Main article: Women in Turkey See also: Prostitution in Turkey and Human trafficking in Turkey In the 1930s, Turkey became one of the first countries in the world to give full political rights to women, including the right to elect and be elected locally (in 1930) and nationwide (in 1934). Therefore, the Constitution was amended.[188] Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex. Turkey elected a female prime minister, Tansu Çiller in 1995. It is also the first country which had a woman, Tülay Tuğcu, as the President of its Constitutional Court. In addition, Turkish Council of State, the supreme court for administrative cases, also has a woman judge Sumru Çörtoğlu as its president. However, representation of women in political and decision-making bodies is low. In the Grand National Assembly of Turkey the percentage of women is 9.1 (17.3 percent is the average in the world).[188] In 1975 the percentage was 10.9 and in 2006 it was 16.3.[189] Only 5.58 percent of mayors are women and in the whole of Turkey there is one governor (among 81) and 14 local governors.[188] Since 1985, Turkish women have the right to freely exercise abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and the right to contraceptive medicine paid for by the Social Security. Modifications to the Civil Code in 1926 gave the right to women to initiate and obtain a divorce.

Nevertheless, in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions, older attitudes prevail among the local Kurdish, Turkish and Arab populations, where women still face domestic violence, forced marriages, and so-called honor killings.[190] To combat this, the government and various other foundations are engaged in education campaigns in Southeastern Anatolia to improve the rate of literacy and education levels of women.[191] In 2008, critics have pointed out that Turkey has become a major market for foreign women who are coaxed and forcibly brought to the country by international mafia to work as sex slaves, especially in big and touristic cities.[192][193][194] A 2008 poll by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey showed that almost half of urban Turkish women believe economic independence for women is unnecessary reflecting, in the view of psychologist Leyla Navaro, a heritage of patriarchy.[195]

Children

Child labor is a minor yet still occurring issue in Turkey. Despite the Government's moderate advancement in eliminating child labor and its worst forms, children continue to engage in agricultural activities for the most part. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 2.6% (corresponding to around 320,000 children) of children aged 5 to 14 work, and that 57% of them are found in the agricultural sector, 15% in the industrial sector and 27% in services.[196] Even though these children's work remains seasonal, the fact that child labor still occurs is partly due to the fact that agricultural enterprises with a very limited workforce are not subject to Government law. In December 2014, the Department's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor reported 8 goods produced exclusively by child labor in Turkey. The majority of these products are agricultural goods including cotton, cumin, hazelnuts, peanuts, pulses and sugar beets.

In March 2021, a report published by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey claimed that more than 3,000 students have suffered from rights violations during protests and demonstrations in turkey between 2015 and 2019.[197]

Sexuality

Main article: LGBT rights in Turkey Istanbul Gay Pride Parade, 2008, Istiklal Street, Beyoğlu, Istanbul 2013, Taksim, Istanbul Prior to 1858, Ottoman Empire had "a lenient legal accommodation of same-sex intimacy". When prosecuted, the punishment was monetary fines. In 1858, the 1810 French Penal Code was adopted by the Ottomans, which had no penalties for same-sex intimacy that is private.[198] Homosexual sexual relationships between consenting adults in private are not a crime in Turkey. The age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual sex is eighteen. On the other hand, the criminal code has vaguely worded prohibitions on "public exhibitionism" and "offenses against public morality" that are sometimes used to discriminate against the LGBT community. As of 2006, Turkey neither has a law permitting homosexuals to get married, nor does it have a law banning discrimination against Turkey's LGBT community. Lambda Istanbul, an LGBT organization founded in 1996, was dissolved in May 2008 following a court decision. The prosecution argued that its objectives went against "the law and morality", but Human Rights Watch has criticized the decision, claiming it had been closed only on procedural grounds.[199] The Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the closure on 28 November 2008.[56] Homosexuals have the right to exemption from military service, if they so request, only if their "condition" is verified by medical and psychological tests, which often involves presenting humiliating, graphic proof of homosexuality, and anal examination.[200] Discrimination against LGBT people in Turkey is widespread.[201][202] According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 78% of Turkish respondents believe that homosexuality is not accepted by society.[203] Human Rights Watch said on 13 March 2009 that the killing of Ebru Soykan, a prominent transgender human rights activist, on 10 March "shows a continuing climate of violence based on gender identity that authorities should urgently take steps to combat".[204] [better source needed] News reports and members of a Turkish human rights group said that an assailant stabbed and killed Ebru, 28, in her home in the center of Istanbul. Members of Lambda Istanbul told Human Rights Watch that in the last month Ebru had asked the Prosecutor's Office for protection from the man who had beaten her on several occasions and threatened to kill her. Lambda Istanbul was told that a few weeks before police had detained the man but released him two hours later. The same man is under police custody as the murder suspect.[204] On 21 May 2008 Human Rights Watch published a 123-page report documenting a long and continuing history of violence and abuse based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Turkey. Human Rights Watch conducted more than 70 interviews over a three-year period, documenting how gay men and transgender people face beatings, robberies, police harassment, and the threat of murder. The interviews also exposed the physical and psychological violence lesbian and bisexual women and girls confront within their families. Human Rights Watch found that, in most cases, the response by the authorities is inadequate if not nonexistent.[205]

Disabled citizens

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was signed by the Turkish Republic on 30 March 2007. The convention was discussed in TBMM (Turkish Grand National Assembly) on 8 May 2008 and it was ratified on 3 December 2008.[206] In July 2005 Law 5378 on Disabled People was enacted.[207] In one particular case, an advocacy group for people with mental disabilities called Mental Disability Rights International criticized the treatment of the mentally ill in a report called "Behind Closed Doors: Human Rights Abuses in the Psychiatric Facilities, Orphanages and Rehabilitation Centers of Turkey".[208] As a result of this criticism, Turkey's largest psychiatric hospital, the Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital in Istanbul, abolished the use of "unmodified" ECT procedures.[209]

Racism

Main article: Racism in Turkey Analysts pointed (in 2010) to discrimination and hate speech on the rise in Turkey, including against Christians and against Jews. The report says "If one goes through the press in Turkey, one would easily find cases of racism and hate speech, particularly in response to the deplorable carnage and suffering in Gaza. These are the cases in which there is no longer a distinction between criticizing and condemning Israel's acts and placing Jews on the firing line."[210]

Religious

Main article: Freedom of religion in Turkey See also: Secularism in Turkey, Conservatism in Turkey, and Varlık Vergisi Mistreatment of religious minorities is a common problem in Turkey and is sometimes sanctioned by the state's leadership.[211] [unreliable source?] Christians for example live in fear of persecution and suffer from discriminatory laws that give non-Muslims disadvantages in comparison to the country's Muslim majority.[212][213] [better source needed] Among the discriminated religious minorities in Turkey are the Alevis, whose "Muslimness" is still unconfirmed. As a result of national and government policy, their religious rights are also restricted and at many instances are a persecuted religious minority.[214]

Hate crimes

Further information: Destroyed Armenian churches in Turkey and Alevi massacres See also: List of assassinated people from Turkey During 2008 there has been an increase in "hate crimes" in Turkey originating from racism, nationalism and intolerance.[215] Despite provisions in the Constitution and the laws there have been no convictions for a hate crime so far, from either racism or discrimination.[215] Since the beginning of 2006 a number of killings were committed in Turkey against people of ethnic or religious minorities or different sexual orientation or social sexual identity. Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code provides for a general ban of publicly inciting people to hatred and disgust.[215] Turkey does not appear to be the scene of large-scale or overt expressions of racism against individuals in the strictest sense of term. However, one of the main challenges facing Turkey in the field of European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) concerns would appear to be the need to reconcile the strong sense of national identity and the wish to preserve the unity and integrity of the State with the right of different minority groups within Turkey to express their own sense of ethnic identity, for example through the maintenance and development of linguistic and cultural aspects of that identity.[216]

Internally displaced people

Around a million people became displaced from towns and villages in south-eastern Turkey during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the insurgent actions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the counter-insurgency policies of the Turkish government.[217] The Migrants’ Association for Social Cooperation and Culture (GÖÇ-DER) was founded in Istanbul in 1997. Branches were later established in Diyarbakir, Van and Hakkari. GÖÇ-DER has been sued five times for its activities. Four of them ended in acquittal.[218] One case demanding the closure of GÖÇ-DER Diyarbakir is still pending after the Court of Cassation cancelled the decision of Diyarbakir Judicial Court No. 1 not to band the association. This court has to hear the case again and scheduled the next hearing for 2 February 2010.[219] In July 2008 Beşir Atalay, Minister of the Interior, answered a request by the CHP deputy of Adıyaman, Şevket Köse.

He said that 314,000 people had applied for aid in order to return to their village. As of May 2008 151,469 people had returned to their villages in 14 provinces. They had been paid about 530 million Turkish Lira.[220] On 12 April 2006, Human Rights Watch researcher Jonathan Sugden was detained by police in Bingöl, while he was carrying out research in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country into the possibilities for IDPs to return and abuses allegedly involving the Turkish gendarmerie and government-armed local defense units called "village guards." He was deported to London the next day.[221]

Workers' rights

The Constitution affirms the right of workers to form labor unions "without obtaining permission" and "to possess the right to become a member of a union and to freely withdraw from membership" (Article 51). Articles 53 and 54 affirm the right of workers to bargain collectively and to strike, respectively. The law prohibits strikes by civil servants, public workers engaged in the safeguarding of life and property, workers in the coal mining and petroleum industries, sanitation services, national defense, banking, and education; however, many workers in these sectors conducted strikes in violation of these restrictions with general impunity. The law requires that, in order to become a bargaining agent, a union must represent 50 percent plus one of the employees at a given work site and 10 percent of all the workers in that particular industry. Labor law prohibits union leaders from becoming officers of or otherwise performing duties for political parties and from working for or being involved in the operation of any profit-making enterprise[56] Most labor experts in the country estimated that approximately 20 percent of the wage and salary workers in the labor force were unionized.

The Labor Act of 2003 established a 45-hour workweek, banned discrimination based on sex, religion, or political affiliation, and entitlement to compensation in case of termination without valid cause. It also mandated that working hours per day cannot exceed 11 hours.[222] Turkey has had a standard state-run pensions system based on European models since the 1930s. Furthermore, since 1999, Turkey has a state-run unemployment insurance system, introduced by Law 4447[223] obligatory for all declared workers.

Extraterritorial beatings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The widespread and systematic use of torture in Turkey goes back to the Ottoman Empire. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, torture of civilians by the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish police was widespread during the Dersim rebellion.[1] The Sansaryan Han police headquarters and Harbiye Military Prison in Istanbul became known for torture in the 1940s. Amnesty International (AI) first documented Turkish torture after the 1971 Turkish coup d'état and has continued to issue critical reports, particularly after the outbreak of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1980s.[2] The Committee for the Prevention of Torture has issued critical reports on the extent of torture in Turkey since the 1990s. The Stockholm Center for Freedom published a report entitled Mass Torture and Ill-Treatment in Turkey in June 2017.[3] The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey estimates there are around one million victims of torture in Turkey.

History

The history of torture goes back to the Ottoman Empire.[4] The Committee of Union and Progress used the place known as the Bekirağa Bölüğü (Military Company of Bekir Agha) situated in the building that now houses the Istanbul University as a special torture place.[4][5] Almost all dissidents came here once.[4] Deputy Rıza Nur was tortured here in 1910. He raised torture allegations in parliament. The demand to establish a commission to investigate the torture allegations was turned down by 96 against 73 votes.[4] After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 Sansaryan Han and the Harbiye Military Prison became the symbols for torture. Having been built in Sirkeci in 1895 Sansaryan Han became the police headquarters of Istanbul in 1944.[6] People that were tortured here include poet and writer Attilâ İlhan, Nihat Sargın, former chair of the Workers Party of Turkey and poet Nâzım Hikmet.[6] During the Racism-Turanism trials, 23 nationalists, including Nihal Atsız, Zeki Velidi Togan, Nejdet Sançar and others, were tortured between 1944 and 1945.[7][8] In 1945 the military prison in Istanbul moved from Tophane to Harbiye. In one section 40 cells were built measuring 1,5 by 2 metres.[9] Alleged members of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) were held here as well as the 40 of 49 Kurds that had been detained in 1959 (de:Prozess der 49). They were held here for 195 days.[9] Twenty-four prisoners allegedly died because of the bad conditions they had been held in.[9] In Harbiye Military Prison members of the extreme right Grey Wolves (ülkücü) were tortured after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état.[10] Besides bastinado (falaka) and rough beatings, prisoners would be held in narrow dark cells often called "coffin" (tabutluk) or isolation (tecrit).[11]

Torture after March 12

After the 1971 Turkish coup d'état torture was applied in police centres and centres of the Counter-Guerrilla that were jointly used by the secret service called National Intelligence Organization and the Special Warfare Department (Turkish: Özel Harp Dairesi, ÖHD).[9] The torture methods included electric shocks applied by field telephones[11] various forms of hanging, falaka, rape, sleep and food deprivation and torturing relatives in the presence of the suspect.[9] The military applied torture to political prisoners as a matter of policy.[12] Affidavits confirmed that martial law commanders, military prosecutors and judicial advisors gave order to torture political prisoners, sometime supervising it.[12]

The Ziverbey Estate

The Ziverbey Estate (Ziverbey Köşkü) is a place in İstanbul-Erenköy which was used as a torture centre especially during the 12 March period.[13] At the Ziverbey Estate well known people such as the journalists İlhan Selçuk, Doğan Avcıoğlu, Uğur Mumcu and İlhami Soysal were tortured.[14] See also

Report of Talat Turhan to the CHP / First published on 1 May 1976

Serdar Çelik: Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force

Torture after the 1980 coup

Over a quarter of a million people were arrested in Turkey on political grounds since 1980 and almost all of them were tortured.[15] The Human Rights Association (HRA), founded in 1986 put the figure at 650,000[16] and in 2008 the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) spoke of one million victims of torture in Turkey.[17] One of the first measures after the 1980 coup d'état was to extend the maximum period of detention from 15 to 30 and then to 90 days.[11] (see the relevant section below). Amnesty International has repeatedly documented that, in practice, incommunicado detention is often longer than legally permitted.[18] Specialized teams in İstanbul, Ankara and Diyarbakır were responsible for the interrogation of specific organizations and groups. İsmail Hakkı, for instance, said that between 1979 and 1985 he worked in the place called political department (at the time "first department") of Istanbul Police HQ in the "K" section (which may be the abbreviation of komünist = communist), the "group for interrogation and operations against illegal organizations" and later at the same place in Erzurum. All people in that wing were professionals. They could guess what organization had carried out which action just because of the way it was carried out and the way the militants had escaped.[19] In the 1980s particularly Amnesty International issued many reports and urgent actions related to allegations of torture in Turkey. Some quotes are:

May 1984, File on Torture: "The Turkish authorities have persisted in the torture of prisoners during the present decade."

July 1985, Testimony on Torture: "Torture is widespread and systematic in Turkey."

February 1986, Violations of Human Rights in Turkey: Political prisoners and common criminals are tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, while in police custody."

July 1987, Continuing Violations of Human Rights in Turkey: "AI continues to be concerned about the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience, systematic torture and ill-treatment of political prisoners..."[2] Besides Amnesty International NGOs such as the International Commission of Jurists and the International Federation of Human Rights and international bodies like the Council of Europe sent delegations to Turkey to investigate the torture claims.[20] On 1 July 1982 five States (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France and the Netherlands) filed an application against Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights. They complained in particular about torture, unfair trials and restriction of freedom of expression. In December 1985 a friendly settlement was reached that asked Turkey to shorten the detention period, lift martial law and present periodic reports.[21] Turkey had shortened the maximum length of detention in May and June 1985 from 45 days to 30 days in areas under emergency legislation and to 15 days in areas not under extraordinary rule.[22] Later the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) became the main body to monitor the situation, but other bodies such as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (see the section on reports) also visited Turkey in order to evaluate the risk of torture in Turkey.

Torture after the 2016 coup d'état attempt

According to Amnesty International, detainees in Turkey are being subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, after the failed coup attempt. Police held detainees in stress positions, denied them food, water and medical treatment. Detainees were verbally abused, threatened as well as subjected to beatings and torture, including rape and sexual assault. Plastic zip-ties were often fastened too tight and left wounds on the arms of detainees. In some cases detainees were also blindfolded throughout their detention. In addition, detainees have been denied access to lawyers and family members and have not been properly informed of the charges against them, undermining their right to a fair trial. In general, it appears that the worst treatment in detention was reserved for higher-ranking military officers. Amnesty International said it wanted the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to send people to check on detainees conditions.[23][24][25] A person who had been on duty at the Ankara police headquarters claimed that police denied medical treatment to a detainee. "Let him die. We will say he came to us dead," the witness quoted a police doctor as saying. Some of the detainees were in extreme emotional distress, with one detainee attempting to throw himself out of a sixth story window and another repeatedly slamming his head against the wall.[25][24] The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan extended the maximum period of detention for suspects from four days to 30, a move Amnesty said increased the risk of torture or other maltreatment of detainees.[23][24] In a detailed research that cited torture cases across Turkey's prisons and detention centers, Stockholm Center for Freedom revealed that the torture, ill-treatment, abusive, inhuman and degrading treatment of people who are deprived of their liberties in Turkey's detention centers and prisons after July 15, 2016, coup bid have become a norm rather than an exception under increased nationalistic euphoria and religious zealotry in the country.[3] The United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Nils Melzer, visited Turkey in 2016. According to his report, though Turkey had laws against torture, they were insufficiently enforced, with investigation of allegations of torture being rare. He reported that he heard many allegations of torture and inhumane treatment.[26] The Turkish government denied these allegations, claiming that they were part of a misinformation campaign by FETÖ, which the Turkish government regards as a terrorist organization.[27][25][26]

Methods

Suspects are blindfolded and handcuffed immediately after detention. Even common criminal suspects are stripped naked during interrogation and left like that, often after being hosed with ice-cold water or left on the concrete floors of cells in harsh conditions of winter.[2] The HRA and the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) determined 37 torture techniques, such as electric shock, squeezing the testicles, hanging by the arms or legs, blindfolding, stripping the suspect naked, spraying with high-pressure water, etc. These techniques are used by the special team members and other interrogation teams.[28] Foot whipping (Turkish: falaka) was the method most frequently applied, until Prof.

Dr. Veli Lök discovered a method of bone scintigraphy that enabled him to detect effects of it a long time after torture.[29][30] There are many more methods applied in Turkey during the past and the present. In the annual reports of the Treatment and Rehabilitation Centres of the Human Rights Foundation the list of methods covers one page.[31] The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture observed that the most severe methods of ill-treatment encountered in the past by CPT delegations has diminished in recent times.[32]

Deaths in custody

In an attempt to obtain detailed information Amnesty International submitted 110 cases to the Turkish authorities between September 1981 and October 1984.[33] On 10 June 1988 AI sent a list with 229 names to the Turkish authorities and in September 1998 received answers on 55 cases.[33] Only after a list of 144 names of prisoners suspected to have died under torture was published in the Turkish press[34] the Turkish authorities provided further information. They indirectly admitted that torture could have caused the death of 40 prisoners. Amnesty International knew of another seven cases in which alleged torturers had been convicted raising the figure of confirmed deaths in custody to 47 between 1980 and 1990.[35] In September 1994 and September 1995 the HRFT published two reports on Deaths in Custody (14 and 15 years since the military take over) presenting a list of 419 deaths in custody (in 15 years) with a suspicion that torture might have been the reason. Another 15 deaths were attributed to hunger strikes while medical neglect was given as the reason for 26 deaths.[36] On the basis of this list Helmut Oberdiek compiled a revised list for 20 years (12 September 1980 to 12 September 2000) and concluded that in 428 cases torture may have been the reason for the death of prisoners.[37] In 2008 alone the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey reported of 39 deaths in prison. In some cases torture was involved.[38] In Diyarbakır Prison the PKK member Mazlum Doğan burned himself to death on 21 March 1982 in protest at the treatment in prison. Ferhat Kurtay, Necmi Önen, Mahmut Zengin and Eşref Anyık followed his example on 17 May 1982. On 14 July 1982 the PKK members Kemal Pir, M. Hayri Durmuş, Ali Çiçek and Akif Yılmaz started a hunger strike in Diyarbakır Prison.[39] Kemal Pir died on 7 September 1982, M. Hayri Durmuş on 12 September 1982, Akif Yılmaz on 15 September 1982 and Ali Çiçek on 17 September 1982.[40] On 13 April 1984 a 75-day hunger-strike started in Istanbul. As a result, four prisoners - Abdullah Meral, Haydar Başbağ, Fatih Ökütülmüş and Hasan Telci - died.

Many more prisoners died as a result of hunger strikes and fast-to-death actions. Most deaths occurred during the actions against the isolation in the F-type prisons (12 in 1996[41] and 61 during the action that started in October 2000 and ended in January 2007). Some prisoners were beaten to death including:

Engin Ceber, on 10 October 2008 in Metris Prison, İstanbul

Prison massacres

See also: List of massacres in Turkey More prisoners lost their lives during operations of the security forces in prisons. The incidents include:[42] Date Prison Death

s

12 September 1995 Buca/Izmir 3 4 January 1996 Ümraniye/Istanbul 4 24 September 1996 Diyarbakır 10 26 September 1999 Ulucanlar/Ankara 10 19 December 2000 20 prisons 30

Legislation

The Constitution of 1982 contains the prohibition of torture in the last two sentences of the first paragraph of Article 17: "No one shall be subjected to torture or ill-treatment; no one shall be subjected to penalties or treatment incompatible with human dignity." Similar provisions had been included in previous Constitutions. In the Constitution of 1876 it was Article 26; in the Constitution of 1924 it was Article 73, and in the Constitution of 1961 it was Article 13 (paragraphs 3 and 4).[43][44] Torture had been banned in Turkey, even before the Turkish Republic was founded. All Constitutions since 1876 carried provisions against torture. The crime of torture was first defined in Article 103 of the penal code of 1858.[45] Between 1926 and 2005 the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) was Law 765. Two provisions of Law 765 provided for punishment in case of torture (Article 243) or ill-treatment (Article 245). Both offences were entitled "bad treatment of civil servants against citizens".[43] The first paragraph of Article 243 TPC restricted the offence of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to acts aimed at eliciting confession to a crime or in cases of victims or witnesses aimed at influencing the decision to make certain statements or complaints. The maximum sentence was eight years' imprisonment.[43] Article 245 TPC provided for sentences of three months to five years' imprisonment if civil servants entitled to use force or other law enforcement officers resorted to bad treatment or imposed suffering on others beyond the orders of superiors and other rules.[43] In practice Article 245 TPC was more often used than Article 243 TPC. The figures of the General Directorate of Criminal Registration and Statistics within the Justice Minister indicate that for every four trials under Article 245 TPC there was one trial under Article 243 TC.[43] On 11 January 2003 one paragraph was added to Article 245 TPC providing that sentences passed under Articles 243 or 245 TPC could not be commuted to fines, be made conditional or be suspended. This provision against impunity was not included in the Penal Code of 2005.[43] The Turkish Penal Code passed on 26 September 2004 as Law 5237 entered into force on 1 June 2005. Like the former Penal Code (Law 765) it included the offence of torture and ill-treatment but added the offence of torment (eziyet). Contrary to the former Penal Code, the Articles against torture and ill-treatment (Articles 94 to 96) were included in the chapter on offences against persons and not against the State.[46] Like torture the offence of "torment" (suffering) has not been defined. It is left to the interpretation as to which kind of act will fall under Article 94 or Article 96 of Law 5237. A similar distinction existed between Articles 243 and 245 of the former TPC, since the first provision only referred to situations of interrogation aimed at getting a confession.[43] The sentences for torment are very low and if as before, most cases of torture are interpreted as torment not only will the sentences remain low but the possibilities to suspend the sentences increase and the limits for exceeding the time limit will be lower.[43] The current government has enacted new laws and training to prevent torture, including a policy involving surprise inspections of police stations that was announced in 2008. A government human rights report issued for the first time in 2008 found that the combined category of torture and ill-treatment was the third-most-common complaint in 2007, after property rights and health care.[47]

Length of detention

Five days after the 1980 Turkish coup d'état the maximum period that person could be held in custody (of police or gendarmerie) was extended from 15 to 30 days. On 7 November 1980 this period was increased to 90 days (3 months), during which time they had no contact to the outside world (incommunicado detention). On 5 September 1981 the maximum period of detention was lowered to 45 days. Between 17 June 1985 and 12 March 1997 the maximum period of incommunicado detention was 15 days (in regions under a state of emergency it could be extended to 30 days). Until 6 February 2002 the maximum detention period for offences dealt with at the State Security Court was seven days (10 days in regions under a state of emergency).[48] Since 2002 the following rules apply.[43] Article 19 of the Constitution provides in paragraph 5 that the maximum time a person may be kept in detention, apart from the time of transfer to the nearest court, is 48 hours. This period is extended to four days in case of jointly committed offences (the condition of more than three suspects is not mentioned in the Constitution). In the Criminal Procedure Code (Law 1412) that was replaced by new legislation in 2005 the maximum time for detention was determined in Article 128. The Article provided that an apprehended person had to be taken to a judge (if not released) within 24 hours, excluding the time for the transfer to the nearest court. If the apprehended person requested, a lawyer could be present during interrogation. The prosecutor could extend this period to four days if more than three suspects were involved.

The Criminal Procedure Code (Law 5271 as of 1 June 2005) regulates the length of custody in Article 91. Again the maximum length of detention is determined to be 24 hours. Article 90 of Law 5271 maintains the maximum length of detention in cases of commonly committed offences as four days. However, the period can be extended for one day at a time (for a maximum of three times). The order for extension of the time in custody again is given by a prosecutor (not a judge).

For offences that had to be dealt with by State Security Courts (under the new legislation they are called "heavy penal courts authorized according to Article 250 of Law 5271") the maximum period of 24 hours in detention as provided in Article 91 of Law 5271 is set at 48 hours, according to Article 251 of Law 5271. This Article also provides that if offences under Article 250 of Law 5271 are committed in regions under a state of emergency the maximum of 4 days detention for commonly committed offences can be extended to 7 days.

Article 148 of Law 5271 proscribes that a lawyer has to be present, when the testimony of a suspect is being taken (the testimony must be signed by a lawyer, otherwise it is not valid).[49] At the end of June 2006 various changes to the Law 3713 on the Fight against Terrorism were made. Article 9 of the revised draft law (amending Article 10 of Law 3713) restricts the immediate right to legal counsel for those detained on suspicion of committing terrorism offences.

Paragraph (b) of the Article specifies that, at a prosecutor's request and on the decision of a judge, a detainee's right to legal counsel from the first moment of detention may be delayed by 24 hours.[50]

Statements extracted under torture

Article 15 of the UN Convention Against Torture And Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified by Turkey in April 1988, prohibits the use as evidence of statements extracted under torture. In addition, Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution of 1982 provides that international provisions once ratified are binding on national law.[51] In view of the prohibition on "torture evidence", Amnesty International remains dismayed by the widespread attitude of judges in the special Heavy Penal Courts: judges are consistently failing to take measures to initiate investigation into complaints of torture or to attempt to assess the admissibility of evidence allegedly obtained illegally.[52] Samples of court rulings on allegations that statements had been extracted under torture include:

Verdict of the Panel of Chambers at the Military Court of Cassation of 17 February 1983: "... Influence is one thing, to disclose the truth as a result of influence is another thing. Because the first one will lead to sanction, there is no need to count the confession as invalid."[53]

Verdict of Chamber 3 at the Military Court of Cassation of 14 December 1982: "Even of it happens that the confession was obtained using torture or other kinds of fraudulent means were applied this kind of behaviour is a different quality in the responsibility of the men on duty so that there is no judicial objection to evaluate the confession and base the verdict on it, if it is being supported by other evidence or material incidents."[53][54]

In a verdict by Erzincan Military Court No. 2, dated 24 January 1984, the judges stated that the allegations of torture were all unfounded (pages 169 to 177). The judges concluded that none of the defendants could have been tortured, because there was no evidence in the medical reports; investigations into allegations of torture had all resulted in either dropping of charges or acquitting alleged torturers. According to the court's verdict anyone, if tortured, would sign a statement prepared by the police following a certain scenario, and there would be no contradictions in those statements.[51]

Verdict of Izmir State Security Court (SSC) of 29 November 1988: "The defendants appealed in their defence for their statements to the police to be taken out of the files, because they had generally been extracted under torture... In accordance with the legislation it was not possible to take their statements to the police out of the files, as these statement have not been assessed as evidence of the defendants' confessions. These statements have been quoted from time to tome, if other evidence and documents existed showing that the defendants committed the alleged crime."[55]

Istanbul Heavy Penal Court No. 14 (previously Istanbul SSC No. 6) in an interim decision during the hearing of a trial against six alleged members of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) on 30 July 2004 (ground number 2004/75): "The demand of some defence lawyers to remove the statements of E.K. to the police, the prosecutor and the arresting judge from the file, because they had not been obtained in a lawful manner and did not constitute legal evidence was rejected, because there is no provision in law to remove documents from court files."[52] See also: Fair trial concerns in Turkey [permanent dead link] 300-page report (in German) by Helmut Oberdiek for Amnesty International Germany, Pro Asyl, and Holtfort-Stiftung, February 23, 2006, (accessed January 1, 2007)

Reports on torture in Turkey

There are numerous reports by international bodies and national and international NGOs on the problem of torture in Turkey.

The Committee for the Prevention of Torture

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has paid regular visits to Turkey since the country signed and ratified the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1988. The reports of the CPT are confidential, but most countries have agreed that these reports are made public. Turkey did so after a visit of the CPT in February/March 1999.[56] Visit from 9 to 21 September 1990 Taking into account also the other information gathered by the delegation in the course of its visit to Turkey the CPT has reached the conclusion that torture and other forms of severe ill-treatment are important characteristics of police custody in Turkey.[57] At the end of 1992 the CPT felt obliged to make a public statement on Turkey and said inter alias In short, more than two years after the CPT's first visit, very little had been achieved as regards the strengthening of legal safeguards against torture and ill-treatment... In the light of all the information at its disposal, the CPT can only conclude that the practice of torture and other forms of severe ill-treatment of persons in police custody remains widespread in Turkey and that such methods are applied to both ordinary criminal suspects and persons held under anti-terrorism provisions.[58] Four years later another public statement was published.

Some progress has been made. The CPT's findings in the course of a visit to Turkey in October 1994 demonstrated that torture and other forms of severe ill-treatment were still important characteristics of police custody in that country. ...the Committee has continued to receive credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by Turkish law enforcement officials throughout 1995 and 1996.[59] The report on a visit between 16 and 24 July 2000 concluded: The information gathered during the visit from various sources suggests that resort to some of the most severe methods of ill-treatment encountered in the past by CPT delegations has diminished in recent times in the Istanbul area.[60] As of October 2009 the latest report on torture in custody concerns a visit in 2005 The information gathered during the CPT’s December 2005 visit would indicate that the curve of ill-treatment by law enforcement officials remains on the decline. However, there are clearly no grounds for complacency, all the more so as reports continue to appear of ill-treatment by law enforcement officials in different parts of the country.[61]

Other international bodies

The Commission for Enlargement of the European Union publishes annual reports on progress of countries that have asked for accession. The report on Turkey of 14 October 2009 stated Overall, while the Turkish legal framework includes a comprehensive set of safeguards against torture and ill-treatment, efforts to implement it and fully apply the government's zero-tolerance policy have been limited. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment and impunity for perpetrators are still a cause for great concern.[62] The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the U.S. Department of State publish annual country reports.

The 2008 report on Turkey was published on 25 February 2009. It stated During the year human rights organizations documented a rise in cases of torture, beatings, and abuse by security forces... A December parliamentary Human Rights Investigation Commission report found that, between 2003 and 2008, 2 percent of the 2,140 personnel who were investigated due to accusations of torture or mistreatment were given disciplinary sentences.[63] The UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak published a report on various countries on 15 March 2007.[64] Pages 119 to 129 relate to Turkey. Among the recommendations was Prosecutors and judges should not require conclusive proof of physical torture or ill-treatment (much less final conviction of an accused perpetrator) before deciding not to rely as against the detainee on confessions or information alleged to have been obtained by such treatment.[64] Following the wide-scale torture incidents in 2016, The UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Prof. Nils Melzer, visited Turkey two times. While his first visit was focused on freedom of press and expression and the second one was focused on the cases of torture under police custody and in prisons. His reports are published at OHCHR website.

Freedom from Torture, the UK charity which works with torture survivors, stated that it had received 79 referrals of individuals from Turkey, for clinical treatment and other services provided by the charity, in 2011[65] Turkey 5.6 6.7 4.5 2022 Women in Turkey Women in Turkey obtained full political participation rights, including the right to vote and run for office nationwide offices in 1934. Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex.

It is the first country to have a woman as the President of its Constitutional Court. Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution reads that the family is "based on equality between spouses". However, 15% of girls in Turkey marry before the age of 18.[1] There are many historical examples of Turkish women involved in public life and activism. The Turkish feminist movement began in the 19th century during the decline of the Ottoman Empire when the Ottoman Welfare Organisation of Women was founded in 1908. The ideal of gender equality was embraced after the declaration of the Republic of Turkey by the administration of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, whose modernising reforms included a ban on polygamy and the provision of full political rights to Turkish women by 1930.

Research by scholars[2][3] and government agencies[4] indicate widespread domestic violence among the people of Turkey, as well as in the Turkish diaspora. Turkey is the first and only country to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. It was estimated in 2012 that 40 percent of women have experienced physical sexual violence.[5] The participation of Turkish women in the labour force stands at about 35 percent.[6] Women in Turkey face discrimination in employment, and, in some regions, education. The participation of Turkish women in the labor force is less than half of that of the European Union average, and while several campaigns have been successfully undertaken to promote female literacy, there is still a gender gap in secondary education.

History

Sultanate of Women

Main article: Sultanate of Women In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries during the Sultanate of Women, some individual women of the Imperial Harem achieved an uncommon degree of influence on politics of the Ottoman Empire.[7] The period started in 1520 during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent until 1656, the reign of Mehmed IV. The sultans did not fear their female relatives as much as they feared their male relatives, allowing women to become close advisers.[8] Some of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, like Kösem Sultan, who were the leaders of the Harem and effectively ruled the Empire, though at one time it was the daughter of the sultan, as with Mihrimah Sultan.[9] Most of the sultan mothers were former concubines (sex slaves).[10] Part of a series on

Women in society

e

Decline of the Ottoman Empire

Main article: Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, educated women within the elite classes of Istanbul began to organise themselves as feminists. The first women's magazine, Terakki-i Muhadderat, appeared on 27 June 1869 as a weekly supplement to Terakki (Progress) newspaper.[11] With the Tanzimat reforms, improving women's conditions was considered as part of a wider modernisation effort.

Ottoman women's movement began to demand rights.[12] They fought to increase women's access to education and paid work, to abolish polygamy, and the peçe, an Islamic veil. Early feminists published woman magazines in different languages and established different organizations dedicated to the advancement of women.[13] The first women's association in Turkey, the Ottoman Welfare Organization of Women, was founded in 1908 and became partially involved in the Young Turks Movement, and the Sade Giyinen Hanımlar Cemiyeti campaigned for the unveiling of women and their participation in public life.

Writers and politicians such as Fatma Aliye Topuz, Nezihe Muhiddin and Halide Edib Adıvar also joined the movement.[13] In her novels, Halide Edib Adıvar criticised the low social status of Turkish women and what she saw as the lack of interest of most women in changing their situation. Nene Hatun became a folk heroine during Russo-Turkish War

​ Fatma Aliye Topuz, first female novelist, and women's rights activist

Turkish Republic

See also: History of the Republic of Turkey Turkish women in a holiday celebration in 1930s During the Turkish War of Independence, Fatma Seher Erden, also called Kara Fatma, proved herself as a successful militia leader. After the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the feminist movement gradually became part of the Kemalist modernization efforts. Polygamy was banned, divorce and inheritance rights were made equal.[13] Mustafa Kemal had the ambition to make Turkey a new modern secular nation. In 1925, the Turkish government introduced a new Family Law modelled after the Swiss Family Law,[14] and in the same year, it banned the fez.[15][16] In 1928, the Turkish government removed the official religion provision from the constitution.[17] Photographs from the December 8, 1934, issue of Akşam newspaper, showing the Turkish Women's Union's rally in Beyazıt.

Mustafa Kemal viewed modern clothing as an essential visual symbol of the new secular nation and encouraged both women and men to wear modern fashion,[18] but in contrast to his law against traditional wear (for example, the fez) for men,[19] he never introduced a ban against the hijab.[20] However, he appeared in public with his wife Latife Uşaki unveiled and arranged formal state receptions with dinner and dance were men and women could mingle, to encourage women to leave seclusion and adopt modern clothing, and in the mid-1920s, upper and middle class Turkish women started to appear unveiled in public. In the 1930s, Turkey gave full political rights to women, including the right to elect and be elected locally (in 1930) and nationwide (in 1934).[21] Granted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkish women gained women's suffrage before women in many European countries such as France, Italy and Greece. There still remained, however, a large discrepancy between formal rights and the social position of women.[13] In the 1980s, women's movements became more independent of the efforts to modify the state. After the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, women from both urban and academic milieus began to meet in reading groups and discuss feminist literature together. In these "awareness-raising groups",[22] which were established notably in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, they criticized the standard construction of the family as well as the gender-specific role behavior that was forced on women. The movement was criticized for being feminist because of western influence, of being middle class, as well as criticized by the socialists for being reformist and liberal.[22] Independent feminist women's magazines were founded to expose the frequency of sexual harassment and violence against women.[13] Şirin Tekeli, Stella Ovadia and Gülnur Savran were some notable women in the movement.[22] They were part of the TUMAS trade union which they organized, which they hoped would be a democratic and egalitarian organization.[22] The feminists published articles in Somut, which subsequently became the most widely spread paper among Turkish women.[22] According to an article by Charlotte Binder and Natalie Richman, in 1987 feminists organized the first public protest against male violence, followed by campaigns against sexual harassment, "purple needle" [definition needed] and campaigns seeking the right of self-determination over the female body. These campaigns arose due to women's wish to reject the traditional patriarchal code of ethics, honor, and religion, which left men to decide the fate of the female body. The second wave of the women's movement in Turkey reached a wider and more diverse group of women than the first women's movement.[13] The acceptance of women's issues as an independent political and planning problem was discussed for the first time in the Fifth Five Year Development Plan (1985–1990), and "the General Directorate for the Status and Problems of Women" was established as a national mechanism in 1990. The General Directorate, which was connected to the Prime Ministry in 1991, has been carrying out its activities under the responsibility of a State Ministry. It conducts a large variety of activities with the objectives of protecting women's rights, strengthening the position of women in social, economic, cultural, and political life, and providing the equal utilization of rights, opportunities, and capacities.

Since the 1990s, feminist discourse has become institutionalized, with the foundation of women's studies centers and university programs at universities such as Marmara University and Istanbul University.[13] In 1993, Tansu Çiller became the first female Prime Minister of Turkey.[23] In 2002, the Turkish government reformed Turkish criminal and civil law to equalize the rights of women and men during marriage, divorce, and any subsequent property rights.[13] Additions to the Turkish constitution oblige the state to use all the necessary means to promote the equality of the sexes. Family courts were also created, labour laws were instituted to prohibit sexism, and programs were created to educate against domestic violence and improve access to education for girls.[13] In 2021, Turkey left the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence at the Istanbul Convention.[24] In response CEDAW told the Turkish government to reverse its decision. A UN special rapporteur said that Turkey's abandonment of the convention "emboldened perpetrators" against women.[24] The Turkish government prohibited marching to commemorate International Women's Day, but despite the prohibition, several thousand women marched in Istanbul in March 2024.[25]

​ Sabiha Gökçen was the world's first female fighter pilot

​ Kara Fatma, military commander

​ Afet İnan, co-founder of the Turkish Historical Society

Legal rights

Main article: Women in Turkish politics See also: Politics of Turkey Canadian political cartoon of a woman in Quebec reading a sign that reads: "News bulletin: for the first time in Turkish history women will vote and be eligible to the public office in the general election which takes place this week." Women were granted the right to vote in Turkey in 1930, but the right to vote was not extended to women in provincial elections in Quebec until 1940.

Turkey is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women since 1985, as well as to its Optional Protocol since 2002.[26] Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex. It is the first country which had a woman as the President of its Constitutional Court, Tülay Tuğcu. In addition, Turkish Council of State, the supreme court for administrative cases, also has a woman judge Sumru Çörtoğlu as its president.

The article 41 of the Turkish Constitution was revised to read that the family is "based on equality between spouses".[27] The new code also granted women equal rights to property acquired during marriage, which was supposedly meant to give economic value to women's labor within the family household.[27] Nezihe Muhiddin, one of leading names of the First Wave Republican feminists. She completed the formation of Women's People Party The minimum age for marriage was also raised to 18 (17 with parental consent).[27] In cases of forced marriage, women have right to ask an annulment within the first five years of marriage.[27] In 2004, an update to article 10 of the constitution placed the responsibility for establishing gender equality on the state: "men and women have equal rights. The state shall have the obligation to ensure that this equality exists in practice".[27] In 2005, the Turkish penal code was changed to criminalize marital rape and harshen the sentences for those convicted of honor killings, which previously carried reduced sentenced because of "provocation".[28] The Human Rights Directorate reported that the number of honor killings committed in Turkey rose to 220 in 2007, with most of the killings occurring in major cities.[28] The Islamic headscarf, worn by 20% of Turkish women,[29][30][31] is allowed to women working in public offices during the practice of their functions. Girl students in primary and secondary education also are allowed to use headscarf.

Politics

Main article: Women in Turkish politics See also: Politics of Turkey

Feminism

Halide Edib Adıvar. Turkish novelist and feminist political leader. The first wave of Turkish feminism occurred in the early 20th century, when women's organizations began to demand equality in civic and political rights. An important women's organization was the Ottoman Society for the Defense of Women's Rights, which was and its organ, the journal Kadınlar Dünyası (Women's World) was established in 1913.[32] After the establishment of the Republic, the women's movement organized in the Women's People Party, which was transformed in to the Turkish Women's Union in 1924, which worked for women's suffrage in the new modern state.

During this early period, the women's rights claims overlapped with the Kemalist reform process in the aftermath of the Republic.[33] On 17 November 1972, National Women's Party of Turkey founded by Mübeccel Göktuna Törüner in İstanbul. Although Turkish women gained universal suffrage in 1934, in the 1970s women's participation in Turkish politics was very low. Second wave feminism reached Turkey in the 1980s, bringing up issues common to the movement which had emerged in the West in the 1960s, such as the elimination of violence against women, the oppression experienced in the family and the challenge against virginity tests, then a common practice for women who were about to get married or who had been subjected to sexual assault.[33] The rise of a global civil society and the internationalization of women's organizations and the accession of Turkey to the European Union have given women's organizations the possibility of accessing foreign funds. The number of women's organizations as well as the projects that these organizations conduct have increased.[33] On the 23 July 1995, it was allowed for political parties to form women's branches, which beforehand was banned in the Turkish constitution of 1982.[34]

Political representation

Main article: Women in Turkish politics See also: Politics of Turkey Tansu Çiller, the first female Prime Minister of Turkey, from 1993 to 1996. In 1930s, Turkish women entered politics for the first time. The first elected female mayor in Turkey was Sadiye Hanım (1930). In the elections held on 8 February 1935 18 women entered the parliament. One of them, Hatı Çırpan was a muhtar (village head) of a village prior to entrance to parliament. The first female city mayor was Müfide İlhan in 1950. Although representation of women in political and decision-making bodies is relatively low, Tansu Çiller has been prime minister between 1993 and 1996. The number of women in the Turkish parliament has increased to 14.3% after the 2011 Turkish general election (79 individuals in the parliament), most of them are affiliated with the Justice and Development Party.[35] In 1975 the percentage was 10.9 and in 2006 it was 16.3.[36] Only 5.58 percent of mayors are women and in the whole of Turkey there is one governor (among 81) and 14 local governors.[21]

Crime against women

Further information: Crime in Turkey, Femicide in Turkey, Pippa Bacca, and Murder of Özgecan Aslan International Women's Day Protests in Turkey. Because Turkey does not keep official statistics on femicide[37][38] and does not release any regular data about murders of women, most of the statistics comes from human rights NGOs which jointly try to collect the data.[39] In March 2018, Turkish police launched the "Women Emergency Assistance Notification System" (KADES) app for women to report cases of domestic violence and seek assistance faster.[40] In November 2018, the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said that the app has been downloaded by over 353,000 people.[41] The murders of women in Turkey increased from 66 in 2002 to 953 in the first seven months of 2009.[42] In the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions in particular, women face domestic violence, forced marriages, and honor killings.[43] Şefkat-Der, a Turkish non-governmental organization, has suggested granting licensed, tax-free guns to women as a way to combat domestic violence.[44] On 8 March 2017, a mob illegally entered the Istanbul Bilgi University campus and attacked students celebrating International Women's Day,[45] also, students mentioned that they had been threatened on Twitter before the incident.[46] Between 2002 and 2009, the murder rate of women skyrocketed by 1,400 percent.[47] On 2010, the Turkish anti-violence group Mor Cati created a video attempted to raise awareness of violence toward women in a public way. The group placed large posters of women jumping for joy, their arms and legs splayed out beyond the frame's borders, all around Istanbul. The text next to the women reads, "I want to live in freedom." The organization then set up hidden video cameras, which purport to show male passersby kicking and ripping off the cutouts' arms and legs.[48][49] In 2013, about 28,000 women were assaulted, according to official figures. Of those, more than 214 were murdered, monitors say, normally by husbands or lovers.[47] In November 2015, Izmir Bar Association's Women's Rights and Legal Support Office said that the last decade has not only seen the increase in the numbers of women subject to violence, but that the violence itself has become more intense and barbaric, "bordering on torture." They also stated that the number of femicides in the last few years has ranged between 5,000 and 6,000, adding that the State either cannot or do not disclose exact records, so different platforms try to fill in this gap in terms of adequate data through media monitoring,". The journalist Ceyda Ulukaya, made an interactive ""Femicide Map" of Turkey. The project, supported by the Platform for Independent Journalism, contains detailed data about 1,134 femicide victims between 2010 and 2015, including the victims, the identity of the accused/murderer, the reason and links to newspaper stories about their murders. Both qualitative and quantitative data showed that the majority of the victims were killed by husbands/ex-husbands (608 cases) and boyfriends/ex-boyfriends (161). The most often-cited reason of the murder is that the woman wanted a divorce or refused reconciliation.[50] On 15 March 2017, Turkish Interior Ministry has announced that a total of 20 women were killed while under temporary state protection between 2015 and 2017. An average of 358 women a day applied to law enforcement officers after suffering violence in 2016. Around five women every hour, or 115 a day, were faced with the threat of murder. The Umut Foundation released statistics regarding violence against women in Turkey on International Women's Day, showing that 397 women were killed in Turkey in 2016. A total of 317 women were killed with weapons in 2016, an increase over the 309 women killed with weapons – out of a total of 413 – in 2015.[51] On 6 July 2017, a pregnant Syrian woman was raped and killed with her 10-month-old baby in the Sakarya Province, Turkey.[52] The first female MPs Republic of Turkey (1935).

Top row (left to right): Mebrure Gönenç (Afyon), Hatı Çırpan (Ankara), Türkan Örs Baştuğ (Antalya), Sabiha Gökçül Erbay (Balıkesir), Şekibe İnsel (Bursa), Hatice Özgener (Çankırı) Middle row (left to right): Huriye Baha Öniz (Diyarbakır), Fatma Şakir Memik (Edirne), Nakiye Elgün (Erzurum), Fakihe Öymen (Ankara), Benal Nevzat İstar Arıman (İzmir), Ferruh Güpgüp (Kayseri) Bottom row (left to right): Bahire Bediş Morova Aydilek (Konya), Mihri Pektaş (Malatya), Meliha Ulaş (Samsun), Fatma Esma Nayman (Seyhan), Hatice Sabiha Görkey (Sivas), Seniha Nafız Hızal (Trabzon) In the monthly report of the group "We Will Stop Femicide", in May 2017, it mentions that 328 women were killed in 2016 while in the first five months of 2017, 173 women were killed across Turkey compared with 137 in the same period of 2016. 210 Turkish women were killed or forced to commit suicide in 2012 in misogynist attacks by men.

Women's activists said that the rise in killings had come as more women sought to exercise their rights, including divorcing abusive partners.[53] 294 women killed in 2014 and 237 in 2013.[54] From 2010 till May 2017, 118 women have been killed in İzmir alone.[53] In December 2016, a man attacked a pregnant woman, in Manisa for jogging at a park.[55][56] According to reports monitoring the number of women killed at the hands of abusive men, 41 women were killed in August 2018 in Turkey.[57] Unofficial data compiled by a Turkish advocacy group reported that in 2018, 440 women in Turkey murdered by men.[37][38] In 2019, the eight women lawmakers from the main opposition staged a protest in Turkey's general assembly. They were banging their desks and singing the "A Rapist in Your Path", while some other lawmakers stood up and held around 20 pictures of victims of femicide in Turkey.[38] According to the We Will Stop Femicides Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu), more than 157 women were murdered by men in Turkey from January 2020 - July 2020.[58] On the 14 March 2012, Turkey was the first country to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence,.[59] The convention entered into effect on the 1 August 2014 as on this date enough member states ratified the Istanbul convention.[59] In July 2020, the deputy chair Numan Kurtulmuş of the Turkish ruling party (Justice and Development Party (AKP)) said that Turkey's 2012 decision of ratifying the convention was wrong, adding that Turkey might consider withdrawing from it.[60] In the same month, the leader of the main opposition party in Turkey (CHP) said that there is a rise in violence against women in the country.[61] World famous celebrities have joined Turkish women's social media campaign with the hashtag #ChallengeAccepted, in order to put an end to domestic violence in Turkey.[58] Despite resistance from the opposition, the Turkish Government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention in March 2021.[62]

Domestic violence

Main article: Domestic violence in Turkey Ataşehir Belediyespor protesting against violence against women A 2002 study by Ayranci, et al. observed that in Turkey, 36.4% of women reported physical violence and 71% mentioned physical, psychological or sexual assault during pregnancy.[63] According to report by the Turkish government dating from 2009, 42% of the surveyed women said they had been physically or sexually abused by their husband or partner.[64] Nearly half of the victims never spoke to anyone about their abuse, and only 8% approached government institutions for support.[65] When women do approach them, police and gendarmerie tend towards attempting to "reconcile" the families rather than protecting the female victims.[65] While the rates of violence are particularly high among poor, rural women, one third of the women in the highest economic brackets have also been subject to domestic violence.[65] A 2009 survey conducted by a leading Turkish university stated that some 42 percent of women over age 15 in Turkey and 47 percent of rural women have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a husband or partner at some point in their lives.[66] According to a United Nations report published in July 2011, 39% of women in Turkey have suffered physical abuse at some time in their lives, compared with 22% in the United States.[42] Even though every municipality with more than 50,000 inhabitants is required by law to have at least one women's shelter, there are just 79 in the whole country.[42] In May 2011, the Human Rights Watch said in a report that Turkey's flawed family violence protection system leaves women and girls across the country unprotected against domestic abuse. The 58-page report, "'He Loves You, He Beats You': Family Violence in Turkey and Access to Protection," documents brutal and long-lasting violence against women and girls by husbands, partners, and family members and the survivors' struggle to seek protection.[66] Over 37% of Turkish women said that they had experienced physical or sexual violence – or both – according to an exhaustive 2014 survey of 15,000 households by the country's family ministry.[53] According to the We Will Stop Women Homicides Platform, 294 women were killed in 2014, and 60% of them perished at the hands of husbands and boyfriends.[67] On 3 October 2017, a woman who took refuge in a women's shelter due to being subjected to violence from her husband was killed by him at Kastamonu.[68] On 9 October 2017, Habertürk reported that the number of electronic bracelets given for domestic violence incidents throughout Turkey is only 30, although some 120,000 women are subjected to violence by men every year in the Turkey.[69] In November 2017, according to a study conducted by a student at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, mentioned that 28.5 percent of the respondents said they have witnessed domestic abuse. In the same study 52.9 percent of those who were involved in a relationship said they were subjected to "dating abuse," described in the report as "psychological harassment or physical aggression." The report also revealed that 6.25 percent of victims said they were touched without their consent and 4.54 said they were raped. The study also showed that abusers are overwhelmingly men.[70] A total of 365 women were killed by men in the first 11 months of 2017, according to data compiled by the "We Will Stop Femicide" activist platform based on news reported in the media. The report also stressed that women who are victims of sexual abuse tend to be neglected by their families, which pushes them to undertake independent measures for their self-protection. Among many victimized women, some end up committing suicide. The report stated that 2017, as of November, 15 percent of the women killed were victims of murder for "wanting to get a divorce," 11 percent were killed for "taking decisions about their lives independently," 7 percent were killed for "financial reasons," 4 percent were killed for "turning down [the man's] reconciliation efforts," and another 4 percent were killed over "debates about their children." Most of the women killed in Turkey in November were aged between 25 and 35, with 75 percent of the women in this age range becoming victims after wanting to get divorce.[71] In 2017, a total of 409 women were killed and 387 children sexually abused in Turkey, according to data compiled by the group "We Will Stop Femicide".[72] A report about October 2017 reveals that during that month 40 women have lost their lives due to femicide, while 25 women have been subject to sexual violence and 32 children have been sexually abused. Also, 20% of women who have been murdered, range between 19 and 24. In addition the report mention that 70% of victims have been murdered by their close relatives (partner, father, son, brother, etc.), and that 40% of victims have been shot dead, whereas 28% have been stabbed to death.[73] According to a report released by the group "We Will Stop Femicide", 28 women were killed and 25 others were subjected to sexual violence in January 2018, added that also 147 children had been sexually abused during January. Twenty one percent of the women killed were murdered for making decisions regarding their own lives, while four percent of women were murdered for refusing to reunite with their former partners. 43 percent were between 36 and 65 years old, 14 percent were older than 66, and 11 percent were between 25 and 35 years old. The majority of the women were killed at home. The platform said the total number of femicides fell slightly compared to the final months of 2017.[72] A 2020 study investigated the relationship between femicides and economic development in Turkey. Using data from the 2010-2017 period, it found that "whether economic development reduces femicide depends on other factors: in poorer provinces, there is a strong positive correlation between women's murders and equality in education and divorce rates, but in richer provinces, these associations are significantly weaker." It concluded that "These results are consistent with the idea that economic development may not reduce women's murders by itself, but it can mitigate the effects of male backlash against women who challenge the status quo."[74]

Monument Counter

The Monument Counter is an online Internet monument commemorating women who have lost their lives to domestic and male violence. It is updated every day. It was conceived in 2012 as a device to generate public awareness concerning the rising number of deaths due to domestic violence[75] and to keep track of this data that is often suppressed, and largely unknown. The website, clearly setting out on its homepage all the names of the women who were murdered, also features a large active counter. Not only is it an awareness raising mechanism for society around domestic violence, but it is also a space for commemoration and mourning. The Monument Counter demonstrates a worrying increase, as well as inviting an urgent countdown. Each name is backed by a news article, with a focus on increasing knowledge and ensuring verifiability. At the time of writing (26.05.2021), the counter is at 162 women thus far for the year of 2021.

Violence for choice of clothing

Protest during women's day In September 2016, Ayşegül Terzi was called a "devil" and kicked by a man in face on a public bus for wearing shorts. Footage showed the man telling her that those who wear shorts "should die."[76] In protest at the attack, the hashtag #AyşegülTerzininSesiOlalim, which translates into English as "let's be the voice of Aysegul Terzi", was used thousands of times. Women in Turkey also posted images to social media of themselves wearing shorts in solidarity.

On 18 September 2016, campaigners gathered in Istanbul to protest the attack and put pressure on authorities to focus on ending violence against women.[77] In June 2017, a female university student, Asena Melisa Sağlam, was attacked verbally and physically by a man on a bus in Istanbul for wearing shorts during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The incident was caught on security cameras.[76][78] Also, later on the same month a woman was harassed on the street in Istanbul when a man accused her of wearing provocative clothing, saying she should be careful because she was "turning people on."[76][79] In July 2017, hundreds of women marched in Istanbul on to protest against violence and animosity they face from men demanding they dress more conservatively. Protesters say there has been an increase in the number of verbal and physical attacks against women for their choice of clothing in Turkey in recent years.[76] Also, later on the same month the security chief of the Maçka Democracy Park in the Şişli district of Istanbul verbally abused a young woman for the way she was dressed and he also called the police. On 30 July 2017, Women's rights associations protested in the Park against such actions.[80] On 10 August 2017, two men on motorbikes sexually harassed two women, at İzmir. Then the women asked for help from two police officers in the street, but one of them started beating one of the women, according to the woman's testimony the "officer said the harassers were right because we were 'dressed inappropriately'". Security footage showed one of the police officers starting to beat one of the women.[81][82] In September 2017, at Ankara, neighbors complained to the manager of an apartment building about a woman for wearing shorts at her home, demanding that she must keep her curtains closed. The manager warned the woman to keep her curtains closed for her own sake.[83] In March 2018, a teacher at a religious vocational high school in Konya was dismissed from his post over comments he made about female students wearing gym clothes. He also wrote that physical education classes should be an optional class for students, as it "prepared girls for the devil".[84]

Rape

Turkey outlawed marital rape in 2005.[85] Reporting on cases of sexual abuse in Turkey is often difficult; the issue is still taboo in Turkish culture, as well as the fact that much of Turkish media don't report on such cases as they tarnish the country's modern and secular image. The result of this is that many injustices within Turkey, including systematic rapes carried out in prisons to maintain power over communities, go unheard by the rest of the world.[86]

Honor killings

Main articles: Honor killing and Honor_killings_by_region § Turkey See also: Conservatism in Turkey According to researchers, one of the important reasons for the high number of honor killings is that punishments are not harsh and laws and legal applications protect the perpetrators.[87] Between 2003 and 2007, 432 (58.5%) of 739 honor killings were committed in İstanbul (167 persons), Ankara (144 persons) and İzmir (121 persons).[87] A July 2008 Turkish study by a team from Dicle University on honor killings in rural Anatolia has so far shown that little if any social stigma is attached to honor killing. The team interviewed 180 perpetrators of honor killings and it also commented that the practice is not related to a feudal societal structure, "there are also perpetrators who are well-educated university graduates. Of all those surveyed perpetrators, 60 percent are either high school or university graduates or at the very least, literate".[88][89] A June 2008 report by the Turkish Prime Ministry's Human Rights Directorate said that in Istanbul alone there was one honor killing every week, and reported over 1,000 during the previous five years. Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Bursa having the highest numbers of reported honor killings.[90][91]

Human trafficking

Main article: Human trafficking in Turkey In 2008, critics have pointed out that Turkey has become a major market for foreign women who are coaxed and forcibly brought to the country by international mafia to work as sex slaves, especially in big and touristic cities.[92][93][94]

Sexual harassment

On 15 February 2015, a social media campaign started in order to let women share their own sexual harassment stories under the hashtag #sendeanlat (you tell your story too), after a 20-year-old woman was brutally killed in Turkey.[95] As of 25 February 2015, there were more than 800,000 tweets.[96] In 2015, the Turkish model, Didem Soydan, tweeted that she had received abusive text messages, after testifying and giving her cell phone number to police in the case of a woman who was forced into a car after being beaten. In addition, the actress Beren Saat, tweeted her own experiences about the sexual harassment and abuses.[95] In June 2018, the Turkish actress Hande Ataizi and a Turkish costume assistant accused the actor Talat Bulut of sexual harassment. A total of 56 producers and directors in Turkey supported the victims with a written statement. In the statement it mention that: "We know it is hard for a woman to expose harassment and abuse incidents in Turkey".

The male actor had rejected the allegations and threatened to launch a countersuit.[97]

Women's shelters

As of September 2018, there are a total of 132 women's shelters in Turkey. Only the province of Bitlis does not have a shelter for women. Most of those facilities are run by the Family, Labor and Social Services Ministry while others are operated by municipalities, the Immigration Authority (Göç İdaresi) and the Purple Roof (Mor Çatı), an NGO. According to data from 2016, 102 shelters under the Family Ministry accommodated 29,612 women and 17,956 children. Thirty-three facilities operated by municipalities sheltered 2,088 women and 1,433 children. And 66 women and 23 children were hosted at the shelter run by the NGO.[57] Aslı Elif Sakallı, from the Purple Roof Women's Shelter Foundation, said that only one or two social workers are employed at shelters that host 25 to 30 women. She also added that some employees at the shelters who are not conscious about gender equality could make statements such as: "But clearly you deserved this".[57]

Religious officials and women

See also: Conservatism in Turkey, Religion in Turkey, and Freedom of religion in Turkey In 2017, the mufti of the Kocaeli's Gölcük district had likened women without headscarves to products sold at half price.[98] In 2018, the mufti of the Zonguldak said that "Women should enter the sea in a way that other women cannot see them. Even women should hide their bodies from other women."[98]

Education

Main article: Education in Turkey A scene from a female-majority class at the Psychology Department of Uludağ University in Bursa, Turkey. In Turkey, 47.5% of staff at the top five universities are female, a higher proportion than for their equivalents in the United States (35.9%), Denmark (31%) and Japan (12.7%).[99] While still trailing male literacy rates, female literacy rates in Turkey have grown substantially to 93.6% in 2016.[100] Illiteracy is particularly prevalent among rural women, who are often not sent to school as girls.[101] Half of girls aged between 15 and 19 are neither in the education system nor in the workforce.[102] The government and various other foundations are engaged in education campaigns in Southeastern Anatolia to improve the rate of literacy and education levels of women.[103] In 2008, 4 million women were illiterate, as opposed to 990 thousand men.[104] A 2008 poll by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey showed that almost half of urban Turkish women believe economic independence for women is unnecessary reflecting, in the view of psychologist Leyla Navaro, a heritage of patriarchy.[105] Volleyball team of Çamlıca Girls' High School in 1950s In the 2012–2013, the schooling ratio of girls (at 99.61%[106] as of 2014 according to the Turkish Statistical Institute) exceeded that of the boys for the first time in Turkish history. The gender gap in secondary education (5.3% lower than boys) remained, albeit at much lower levels in comparison to the 2002–2003 educational year (25.8%).

However, the gender gap in higher education increased between 2002 and 2012 to 9.5%.[107] Significant regional differences still persist, with only 15.9% of girls attending secondary school in the Muş Province as of 2010, as opposed to 82.4% in the Bilecik Province, the province with the highest percentage.[108] In 2009, the provinces with the lowest schooling ratios for girls were Bitlis, Van and Hakkari, all in southeastern Turkey, while those with the highest ratios were Ankara, İzmir and Mersin, all in western Turkey. Dropout rates for girls at primary level are higher than boys, especially concentrating at the fifth and sixth years.[104] Daily Habertürk reported on 9 January 2018, that only three state universities in Turkey have women rectors, despite women making up 43.58 percent of all academics in the country. According to education specialist Alaaddin Dinçer, the absence of women among universities' boards of directors is the result of a "consciously made decision."[109]

Employment

See also: Economy of Turkey and Female labor force in the Muslim world Sertab Erener is a Turkish singer and the winner of Eurovision Song Contest 2003 The employment rate (for ages 15–64), as of 2017, was 32.2% for women, much lower than that of men which was 70.7%.[110] In 2011, out of 26 million employable women, only 5.9 million were in the labor force.[111] 23.4% of women have either been forced by men to quit their jobs or prevented from working.[112] The rate of women not covered by social security is 84% in the East and 87% in the Southeast.[102] According to World Bank, women made up 32.7% of the labor force in 2018 (roughly unchanged from 1990 when they made up 30.8%).[113] On the other hand, it is possible that the involvement of women in the labour force is very underestimated, due to women working in the informal economy.[114] Despite the relatively low involvement of women in the workforce compared to other countries, women in Turkey are quite well represented in the business world; for instance the proportion of women in business leadership roles in Turkey is almost twice higher than that of Germany.[115] Research on Turkish family businesses has found that women's formal participation in business ownership increased during the second half of the twentieth century. Using firm registry data from 1957 to 1994, researchers found that women became increasingly represented as shareholders and founders, particularly during the 1980s. However, formal ownership did not necessarily translate into executive authority. Inheritance practices and family structures continued to shape women's roles, while greater educational opportunities, generational change and export-oriented growth created new opportunities for younger women to participate in family firms.[116] On 19 October 2017, Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TÜRKONFED) Chairman said that half of the women in Turkey's labor force are unregistered and that the ratio of unregistered women workers in the country is much higher than that of men.[117] He also, said that Turkey must raise women's participation in the workforce to ensure sustainable development, adding that Turkey is the only country in Europe with an employment rate among women lower than 40 percent.[117] As of 2018, just 34% of women in Turkey work, by far the lowest of the 35 industrialised countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) where the average is 63%.[118] On 19 June 2018, the European Court of Human Rights has fined Turkey 11,000 euros over the government-owned electricity distribution company's refusal to appoint a woman as a security officer on account of her gender. In October 1999 the female applicant, Hülya Ebru Demirel, passed a civil service exam and was informed that she would be appointed as a security officer at the Kilis branch of the Turkish Electricity Distribution company (TEDAŞ).

However, the company refused to appoint her, citing her failure to fulfil the condition for the position to be "a man who has completed military service". The applicant initially won a discrimination court case against the company in 2001 but that decision was overturned on appeal by the Supreme Administrative Court in December 2002. Demirel's subsequent appeals were all reported to be unsuccessful, which ultimately led her to lodge an appeal at the ECHR on 17 June 2008.[119] As of 2025, structural inequalities continue to limit Turkish women in the workplace: "Women are overrepresented in low-paid, low-security sectors such as care work, education, textiles, and retail, while underrepresented in male-dominated fields like construction, transport, engineering, and technology. Even within female-dominated sectors, women often occupy lower-level positions, while leadership roles remain largely inaccessible."[120]

​ Feryal Özel, Scientist

Censorship

Main article: Censorship in Turkey In March 2018, Parliament Speaker İsmail Kahraman forbid the women of a troupe from being onstage, at a tribute to the anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign at the Turkish Parliament. He was offended that actresses playing the mothers of soldiers would be giving men public hugs.[121] In September 2020, a female politician of Kurdish origin Sebahat Tuncel was sentenced to 11 months in prison for calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan an enemy of women in a speech in 2016. She had made this statement after two controversial statements of Erdogan where in 2014 he said "publicly women are not equal to men" and in 2016 he said "women who reject motherhood are deficient and incomplete".[122]

Family life

See also: Child marriage in Turkey Female soldiers of Turkish Armed Forces in NATO Headquarters Sarajevo. On average, 18% of Turkish women were married before the age of 18. Because of the large regional differences in the incidence of underage marriages, as many as 30% are married as minors, particularly in Eastern Anatolia.[123] A report by the Commission on Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men states that childhood marriages are "widely accepted" by Turkish society.[123] A bride price is still paid in parts of Turkey.[123] In 2016, the governing Islamist conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) sought to introduce legislation which would have made a child rape no longer punishable if the perpetrator would offer to marry his victim; this was withdrawn after a public outcry against what was widely seen as an attempt of "legitimising rape and encouraging child marriage".[124] In February 2018, daily Habertürk reported that the number of Turkish women illegally seeking surrogate mothers abroad, especially in countries where the practice is common and legal, such as in Cyprus, Georgia and the United States, or women offering to become surrogates for money has been on the rise. This practice is forbidden by Turkish law.[125]

Underage pregnancy

See also: Teenage pregnancy General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs, mentioned that 2,730 girls younger than 15 years old and 50,848 girls aged between 15 and 17 gave birth in 2001.[126] Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜIK) mentioned that 16,396 girls aged between 15 and 17 gave birth across Turkey in 2016, as well as 234 girls younger than 15.[126] In 2017, officials in Turkey recorded the number of underage pregnancies at 15,216. Istanbul and the province of Gaziantep topped the list with 1,106.[127] In January 2018, media reports revealed that a single Istanbul hospital had covered up over 100 underage pregnancies in just six months.[126] In the first half of 2018, there were 625 underage conceptions in Istanbul and 499 in Gaziantep.[127] During 2017 and the first half of 2018, there were 1,348 underage pregnancies in the province of Adana, 1,005 in the province of Diyarbakır and 1,313 in the province of Hatay. During this period, in only four provinces of Turkey the number of underage pregnancies fell below 10.[127]

Clothing

See also: Headscarf controversy in Turkey, Turkish folk dress, and Kurdish traditional clothing

Do you cover when going outside?[128]

1999 2012 No, I do not 47.3% 70.5% Yes, I wear a headscarf 33.4% 18.8% Yes, I wear a türban 15.7% 11.4% Yes, I wear a çarşaf 3.4% 0.1% NI/NA 0.3% 2.2% A 2006 survey by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation estimated the prevalence of hair covering among Turkish women at 30%.[129] There are regional variations: in 2005, 30% of women in Istanbul covered their hair, while in central and eastern Turkey, women are rarely seen on the streets, and wear headscarves in public.[130] Women in headscarves at a cafe The 2006 survey found that, compared to a previous study carried out in 1999, the number of women who employ headcoverings had increased in rural areas, but decreased in cities.[131] It also found that the çarşaf, Turkish version of Arabic niqab, was almost never worn by women in the 18–39 age group.[131] From 1999 to 2006, women not wearing head coverings in the 25–39 age group rose from 28% to 41.5%, and in the 18–24 group increased from 40.5% to 50.7%.[131] The prevalence also differs by income: in 2006, 37.2% of women in the medium income group were uncovered, compared to 71.2% in the higher income group.[131] The same survey asked single men whether they would want prospective wives to go covered: 56% responded no, 44% yes.[131] Only 1.1% of covered women said they cover because of their spouses, fiancees or family.

Women's health

See also: Abortion in Turkey, Health in Turkey, Health care in Turkey, and Women's health Since 1985, Turkish women have the right to freely exercise abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and the right to contraceptive medicine paid for by the Social Security. Turkish prime minister Erdoğan argued that women should have at least three children.[65] ​ With the 1994 World Population and Development Conference, the Ministry of Health adopted a policy change which included the emotional, social and physical health of women and young girls with an integrated approach, rather than only reproductive health and family planning as it did in the past. Another initiative brought onto the agenda by the Ministry of Health after the Beijing Conference, is to ensure the participation of men in reproductive health and family planning.

Sport

​

​ Çağla Kubat, 2006, Turkish model and windsurfer

Bibliography on feminism in Turkey

History of feminism in Turkey

Feminism during the Ottoman Empire

Toprak, Zafer. (1992). "II. Meşrutiyet Döneminde Devlet, Aile ve Feminizm", Sosyo-Kültürel Degişme İçinde Türk Ailesi, cilt 1, Başbakanlık Aile Araştırrma Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara, pages 237.

Zihnioğku, Yaprak. (2003). Kadınsız İnkılap. Metis. (especially pp. 54–115, chap. 5–7.)

Safarian Alexander. (2007). On the History of Turkish Feminism, "Iran and the Caucasus", vol.11.1, Brill, Leiden – Boston, pp. 141–152.

The Republic and feminism

Berktay, Fatmagul. (1993). "Turkiye Solunun Kadina Bakisi: Degisen Bir Sey Var mi?" (der) Sirin Tekeli, 1980'ler Turkiye'sinde Kadin Bakis Acisindan Kadinlar. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Çağlayan, Handan (2007). Analar Yoldaslar Tanricalar: Kurt Hareketinde Kadinlar ve Kadin Kimliginin Olusumu. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari. ISBN 9789750504921.

Durakbasa, Ayse (1989). "Cumhuriyet Doneminde Kemalist Kadin Kimliginin Olusumu" Tarih ve Toplum". Tarih ve Toplum. 9 (51). Iletisim Yayinlari.

Ergün, Emek (February 2013). "Feminist translation and feminist sociolinguistics in dialogue: A multi-layered analysis of linguistic gender constructions in and across English and Turkish". Gender and Language. 7 (1): 13–33. doi:10.1558/genl.v7i1.13.

Edip, Halide (2000). Turk Modernlesmesi ve Feminizm. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Koçak, Mine. 80'li Yıllar Kadın Hareketi Link to the original document. Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Mojab, Shahrzad (2001), "Introduction: The solitude of the stateless-Kurdish women at the margins of feminist knowledge", in Mojab, Shahrzad (ed.), Women of a non-state nation: the Kurds, Costa Mesa, California: Mazda Publishers, pp. 1–10, ISBN 9781568590936. Pdf of book contents.

Tekeli, Sirin. (1998). "Birinci ve İkinci Dalga Feminist Hareketlerin Karşılaştırılmalı İncelemesi Üzerine bir Deneme." 75 Yılda Kadınlar ve Erkekler, İş Bankası ve Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, s. 337–346.

Stella, Ovadia ve Gülnur Savran; Bozan & Ekin, & Ramazanoglu & Tuksal pieces in Özgürlüğü Ararken, Amargi, s. 37–57, 81–101, 203–221, s. 221–239 (roza ve jujin dergileri), 239–257.

Nukhet, Sirman (1993). "Feminism in Turkey: A Short History". New Perspectives on Turkey. 3 (1). Contemporary Turkish Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science: 1–34.

Selections from Amargi no. 3, Projen Var Mı? (tarih??)

On women and gender

Islam, nationalism and the nation-state

See also: Islam in Turkey

Acikel, Fethi. (1996). "Kutsal Mazlumlugun Psikopatolojisi", Toplum ve Bilim. (70): 153–199.

Akin Feride. (1998). "Turban Sorunu: En Buyuk Dusman", Birikim 114.

Media and women

Aktanber, Ayse. (1993). "Turkiye'de Medya'da Kadin: Serbest, Musait Kadin veya Iyi Es, Fedakar Anne", (der) Sirin Tekeli, 1980'ler Turkiyesinde Kadin Bakis Acisindan Kadinlar. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Asuman, Süner. Hayalet Ev: Yeni Türk Sinemasında Aidiyet, Kimlik ve Bellek, "Vasfiye'nin Kız Kardeşleri" (İstanbul: Metis Yayınları), s. 291–305.

Women's bodies, sexuality, and violence

Ayse Gul Altınay and Yesim Arat, 2007. Türkiye'de Kadına Yonelik Siddet. [Click on for the original document: http://www.kadinayoneliksiddet.org/TurkiyedeKadinaYoneliksiddet.pdf Archived 6 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine ]

Kadioglu Ayse (1998) "Cinselligin Inkari: Buyuk Toplumsal Projelerin Nesnesi Olarak Turk Kadinlari", 75 Yilda Kadinlar ve Erkekler, Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari.

Sümer, Sevil; Eslen-Ziya, Hande (February 2017). "New waves for old rights? Women's mobilization and bodily rights in Turkey and Norway". European Journal of Women's Studies. 24 (1): 23–38. doi:10.1177/1350506815619878. S2CID 148220666.

Gender-related division of labor

Hattatoglu-Ozbek Dilek. (2002). "Ev Eksenli Calisma Stratejileri" (der) Aynur Ilyasoglu, Necla Akgokce, Yerli Bir Feminizme Dogru. Istanbul: Sel Yayincilik.

Ozbay Ferhunde (1998) "Turkiye'de Aile ve Hane Yapisi: Dun, Bugun, Yarin", (der) Ayse Berktay Hacimirzaoglu, 75 Yilda Kadin ve Erkekler. Istanbul: Turkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi Yayini.

(2002) "Evlerde El Kizlari: Cariyeler, Evlatliklar, Gelinler", (yay. Haz. Ayse Durakbasa) Tarih Yaziminda Sinif ve Cinsiyet. Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Ozyegin Gul (2003) "Kapicilar, Gundelikciler ve Ev Sahipleri: Turk Kent Yasaminda Sorunlu Karsilasmalar", (der) Deniz Kandiyoti, Ayse Saktanber, Kultur Fragmanlari/ Turkiye'de Gundelik Hayat. Istanbul: Metis.

(2004) Baskalarinin Kiri/Kapicilar, Gundelikciler ve Kadinlik Halleri (Cev. Sugra Oncu) Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Yasin, Yael Navaro. (2000). "Cumhuriyetin Ilk Yillarinda Ev Isinin Rasyonellesmesi", Toplum ve Bilim (84).

Sirman, Nukhet. (2002). "Kadinlarin Milliyeti", Modern Turkiye'de Siyasi Dusunce (Cilt 4), Istanbul: Iletisim Yayinlari.

Women and property rights

Toktas, Sule; O'Neil, Mary Lou (December 2013). "How do women receive inheritance? The processes of Turkish women's inclusion and exclusion from property". Asian Women. 29 (4): 25–50. doi:10.14431/aw.2013.12.29.4.25. S2CID 142938497.

Women and work

Erdogan Necmi (2002) "Yok-Sanma: Yoksulluk, Maduniyet ve Fark Yaralari", (der) Necmi Erdogan, Yoksulluk Halleri. Istanbul: Demokrasi Kitapligi.

Savran Gulnur (2004) Beden, Emek, Tarih: Diyalektik Bir Feminizm Icin. Istanbul: Kanat Yayincilik.

Bora, Aksu (2005). Kadınların Sınıfı. İletişim. pp. 59–182 (the theoretical overview from pp. 21–59 is highly recommended by Ayse Parla for her gernder class in Sabanci)

Women and gender (overall)

Glüpker-Kesebir, Gitta (August 2016). "Women's Rights in Turkey and the European Union Accession Process: German Media Perspectives". Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. 37 (4): 514–537. doi:10.1080/1554477X.2016.1192422. S2CID 147777072.

Women's rights

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Further reading

Algan, Ece. "Women’s rights and gender equality in Turkey the politicization of rape as a consequence of western modernity and religious conservatism: Competing media narratives on gender." International Journal of Communication 14 (2020): 19-19.