USCIRF 2026 Annual Report — Turkey: Religious Freedom Concerns Persist Amid Political Crackdowns and Legal Barriers

WASHINGTON D.C. — The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) warned in its 2026 annual report that Turkey continues to engage in “systematic and ongoing severe violations of religious freedom,” urging the US government to place the country on its Special Watch List under the International Religious Freedom Act.

The Commission’s findings portray a complex landscape in which limited gestures toward religious communities coexist with policies that restrict the rights of minorities and criminalize certain forms of religious expression.

Turkey’s government, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, maintained dialogue with several historic religious institutions in 2025, including negotiations with leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church over the possible reopening of the Halki Theological School, which has remained closed since 1971 due to government policies. Authorities also initiated restoration projects for some historic houses of worship, including Cappadocia’s medieval St. George Church as part of a broader tourism initiative.

Yet the report concluded that these symbolic steps did little to alleviate the broader structural barriers faced by many religious groups.

Alevis, Protestant Christians, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, among others, continued to face difficulties obtaining legal recognition or permission to register places of worship. Without such recognition, communities struggle to build, renovate, or even legally use buildings for regular religious gatherings.

USCIRF also documented a tightening climate around religious expression. Turkish authorities have increasingly relied on Article 216 of the penal code — originally designed to prevent incitement to hatred — to prosecute individuals accused of insulting religious values.

In January, the Ministry of Defense dismissed five newly commissioned lieutenants and three superior officers after they chose to take a secular oath during their swearing-in ceremony rather than the religiously framed pledge favored by authorities.

Authorities also intensified monitoring of online content deemed offensive to Islam. In June, the Interior Ministry arrested several staff members of the satirical magazine LeMan after the publication of a cartoon that critics claimed caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. Justice Ministry officials later announced an investigation into the journalists on charges of publicly insulting religious values.

In a separate case in September, prosecutors in Istanbul charged YouTube interviewer Boğaç Soydemir and his guest Enes Akgündüz with inciting hatred after they read a viewer-submitted joke referencing the Prophet Muhammad during an online interview.

The report noted what it described as inconsistent enforcement of such laws. In March, Turkey’s highest appeals court overturned the conviction of a man who had publicly threatened violence against Jews, Americans, and Kurds.

Legislative changes have also expanded the state’s role in regulating religious life. In June, Turkey’s parliament amended legislation to broaden the authority of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, allowing it to prohibit the distribution of Quran translations deemed inconsistent with Islamic principles.

Alevi advocacy groups have long criticized the Diyanet’s mandate, arguing that the institution overwhelmingly supports Sunni Muslim practices while excluding Alevi religious institutions from official recognition and public funding. The government classifies Alevis (Alawites) as a cultural tradition rather than a distinct religious community.

Alevi Muslims perform a cem ritual at a Djemevi (cem house) to celebrate Nowruz in Izmir, Turkey, on 26 March 2022.

USCIRF also reported a years-long campaign targeting foreign Christian clergy. Turkish authorities have reportedly denied residency or reentry to at least 375 foreign pastors, missionaries, and other religious workers, often citing national security concerns.

Officials frequently relied on immigration codes known as N-82 and G-87 to designate clergy members as potential security threats, preventing them from renewing residence permits or returning to the country after travel abroad. Many of these clergy had lived in Turkey for years, serving Protestant congregations that lack domestic training institutions for ministers.

The restrictions have compounded challenges already faced by Protestant Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses, who continue to encounter legal obstacles in establishing or repurposing buildings for worship.

Turkey’s constitution formally enshrines secularism and guarantees freedom of religion and conscience. Yet the commission argues that demographic realities and political trends have increasingly marginalized non-Sunni communities.

Nearly 99.8% of Turkey’s population of about 85 million is classified as Muslim, according to official estimates. The country also includes an estimated 10 to 25 million Alevis (Alawites), along with smaller communities of Shia Muslims, Greek (Rûm), Syriac Orthodox Christians, Armenian Apostolic, Protestants, Roman and Chaldean Catholics, Jews, Yezidis, and Baha’is.

While the government maintains formal relations with several of these groups under provisions linked to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, critics say those arrangements have not translated into equal legal protections.

Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople and primus inter pares (first among equals) among the heads of the autocephalous Churches that comprise the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The USCIRF report urges Washington to place Turkey on the Special Watch List and to link future security assistance and trade policy to measurable improvements in religious freedom.

It also calls on US officials to press Ankara to lift national security bans on foreign clergy, ease restrictions on religious education and registration of religious groups and ensure broader access to houses of worship.

Members of the US Congress, the Commission recommended, should hold hearings on religious freedom in Turkey and investigate the use of Article 216 as a de facto blasphemy law.

Despite tensions over human rights issues, the United States maintained a strategic relationship with Turkey in 2025. American officials raised religious freedom concerns during several diplomatic engagements, including meetings between President Donald J. Trump and President Erdoğan.

The long-standing dispute over the reopening of the Halki Theological School remains a focal point in those discussions, symbolizing what advocates say is a broader test of religious freedom in modern Turkey.

The Theological School of Halki was the primary seminary of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople until it was forced to close by the Turkish government in 1971.