Türkiye Urged to End Violence, Rights Abuses
The landmark call on February 27, 2025, to end a decades-long armed insurgency against the Turkish state should be a catalyst to end its abusive use of terrorism charges to criminalize and silence government critics including politicians, journalists, lawyers, and activists.
Against the backdrop of the call by Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for the group to lay down arms and disband, thousands of people remain arbitrarily detained or on trial for alleged PKK links on the basis of their legal and nonviolent activities. Among them are politicians Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, jailed for over eight years despite European Court of Human Rights rulings calling for their immediate release.
“The Erdoğan government should seize the moment of this landmark call to correct course and as a first step drop unfounded criminal charges against those accused of PKK links simply for exercising their rights to free speech, association, and other lawful activities,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should review all convictions under the same charges and embark on reforms to end the misuse of criminal law and detention of government critics.”
The widespread misuse of terrorism charges, accusing people of links with the PKK, has been the source of serious and pervasive violations of human rights in Türkiye for many years, as documented in numerous reports by Human Rights Watch. Abuses include criminalization of protest and abusive prosecutions of Kurdish politicians, among them elected mayors, lawyers, journalists, and others. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly found that Turkish authorities have violated the rights of people convicted for PKK links on the basis of protests, speeches, and other nonviolent activities.
A pattern of terrorism investigations and detentions over the past four months initiated by the Istanbul chief prosecutor against dozens of politicians, activists, lawyers, and journalists has been a stark demonstration of political abuse of the justice system to curtail the rights of the political opposition and perceived government opponents, Human Rights Watch said.
The authorities have cited terrorism investigations and charges as the reason to replace elected mayors with government-appointed officials in 10 municipalities in southeastern Türkiye controlled by the pro-Kurdish rights Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) and in two municipalities controlled by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP).
The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office has targeted Istanbul municipalities controlled by the CHP, which received support from DEM party voters in the March 31, 2024 local elections, and has initiated investigations and detentions of numerous other activists.
The prosecutor’s accusations rest on the unsubstantiated premise that all of the politicians and activists were operating under the instructions of the PKK or that they were working for an organ of the PKK under the guise of an opposition platform, the Peoples’ Democratic Congress (Haklarıin Demokratik Kongre, HDK), which encompasses Kurdish and leftist groups as well as civil society organizations. The platform, set up in 2011, is not banned or closed down and has held news conferences outside the Istanbul courthouse protesting the detentions.
The move to accuse the CHP of PKK links began with the October 30, 2024 arrest and removal of Ahmet Özer, a 65-year-old university professor who is the mayor of the Esenyurt district of Istanbul. On the same day, a court ordered his pretrial detention on allegations of “membership” of the PKK, and the authorities removed him from office, appointing the Istanbul deputy governor in his place.
Among the most recent terrorism-related arrests in Istanbul have been the February 13 detentions of 10 elected council members on charges of “membership of the PKK.” All were elected as part of a political strategy by the DEM party and CHP to cooperate in the local elections.
Fifty more people are under investigation for their political activism, journalism, and civil society activities and accused of PKK membership as a result of their alleged involvement with the legal HDK platform. On the night of February 21, Istanbul courts placed 30 of them in pretrial detention, with 13 placed under house arrest and 7 released under judicial controls. Among them are Ercüment Akdeniz, a journalist for İlke TV; Yıldız Tar, a journalist and LGBT activist; Elif Akgül, a journalist who formerly worked for the online news site Bianet; and Pınar Aydınlar, a singer.
“The Erdoğan government committed in October 2024 to end the decades-long conflict with the PKK through direct negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader, but simultaneously it has escalated a crackdown on the legal political opposition and on political and civic activism,” Williamson said. “Abusive prosecutions and arbitrary detentions of elected opposition politicians and government critics on wholly dubious evidence have no place in any society based on the rule of law and should never be part of conflict resolution.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/28/turkiye-use-call-halt-violence-catalyst-end-rights-abuses