{"id":922,"date":"2026-02-06T12:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/922\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T12:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:01:14","slug":"hrw-documents-turkeys-authoritarian-trajectory-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/922\/","title":{"rendered":"HRW documents Turkey\u2019s authoritarian trajectory in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Photo: \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu at a court hearing<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday that Turkey\u2019s government consolidated its authoritarian trajectory in 2025 with an unprecedented campaign against the country\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP), warning that the crackdown threatens political freedoms and the prospects for free and fair elections.<\/p>\n

In its annual World Report 2026 Turkey chapter<\/a>, the group said the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan exercises control over domestic courts and persists in non-compliance with binding European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings, which it said leads to serious human rights violations. It said journalists, public figures and social media users frequently face prosecution and sometimes pretrial detention for criticism of the government and judiciary, including under terrorism and misinformation-related charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Erdo\u011fan government has spent the past year attempting to remove political opponents and rivals and pursuing a barrage of lawsuits against the main opposition party,\u201d Benjamin Ward, acting Europe and Central Asia director at HRW, said<\/a> in commentary.<\/p>\n

HRW pointed to the March 19 detention and later arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, the strongest political rival of Erdo\u011fan, as a turning point.<\/p>\n

On the day of Imamo\u011flu\u2019s arrest, Turkey\u2019s internet authorities imposed a 42-hour bandwidth reduction that made social media platforms inaccessible and later blocked \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s account on X in Turkey.<\/p>\n

Protest-related arrests also escalated after \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s detention, with hundreds of people, mostly students, detained for demonstrations. HRW said many faced charges such as attending unauthorized protests and failing to disperse.<\/p>\n

The group said reports of ill-treatment in custody persisted, citing accounts from young people detained during mass demonstrations following \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s arrest. It said a culture of impunity remained widespread, with only rare cases of accountability.<\/p>\n

The campaign against the CHP included efforts at removing party chair \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel and other leaders. HRW said the detention of opposition mayors and council members in Istanbul districts and other cities reinforced concerns that authorities were trying to sideline the country\u2019s main political opposition.<\/p>\n

The group said Turkey\u2019s courts remained heavily influenced by the government and continued to ignore binding judgments from the ECtHR, a pattern it said contributed to serious rights violations.<\/p>\n

According to the report the government maintained pressure on journalists and public figures through criminal investigations and detentions for criticism of officials and the judiciary. At the time of writing, 27 journalists and media workers were in pretrial detention or serving prison sentences.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch highlighted the arrest of veteran journalist Fatih Altayl\u0131, who broadcasts on YouTube, saying he received a prison sentence of four years and two months on what it called baseless charges of threatening Erdo\u011fan. It also noted trials against executives of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (T\u00dcS\u0130AD) on charges including \u201cpublicly disseminating misinformation,\u201d citing their public criticism of Turkey\u2019s human rights record.<\/p>\n

The report said Turkey\u2019s broadcasting regulator, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RT\u00dcK), imposed arbitrary fines and disproportionate broadcast suspensions on opposition outlets and streaming platforms, limiting freedom of expression. It said public broadcaster the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the Anadolu Agency and most major private television stations were aligned with the government.<\/p>\n

The group also said thousands of people remained caught up in terrorism investigations and trials linked to the faith-based G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n

President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan has been targeting followers of the G\u00fclen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah G\u00fclen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle.<\/p>\n

Dismissing the investigations as a G\u00fclenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdo\u011fan began to target the movement\u2019s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused G\u00fclen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.<\/p>\n

HRW cited a July 2025 statement by the justice minister saying investigations of 58,000 people and the trials of 24,000 were continuing, while 11,640 people were in prison in pretrial detention or serving sentences in cases tied to the G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n

Lawyers faced heightened judicial harassment, particularly when representing clients in politically charged cases or speaking publicly about rights violations. HRW cited the removal of the Istanbul Bar Association\u2019s board in a civil case brought by the Istanbul prosecutor after the association called for an investigation into the killing of two Kurdish journalists in a Turkish drone strike in Syria.<\/p>\n

The report said criminal proceedings also continued against lawyers linked to \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s cases, stating that Mehmet Pehlivan, identified as \u0130mamo\u011flu\u2019s defense lawyer, had been held in pretrial detention since June and was indicted in November on charges including \u201cmembership of a criminal organization\u201d in the main case against the mayor.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch said Turkey continued to defy ECtHR rulings ordering the release of philanthropist Osman Kavala, who has been jailed since 2017. It said Kavala and other civil society figures, including \u00c7i\u011fdem Mater, Can Atalay, Mine \u00d6zerden and Tayfun Kahraman, remained behind bars after convictions concerning the 2013 Gezi Park protests that the group described as baseless.<\/p>\n

The Gezi Park protests, which began over an urban development plan in central \u0130stanbul in the summer of 2013 and spread to other cities in Turkey, posed a serious challenge to the rule of then-prime minister Erdo\u011fan. They were violently suppressed by the government of Erdo\u011fan, who later labelled the protests as a \u201ccoup attempt\u201d against him.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch cited the continued imprisonment of former Peoples\u2019 Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairs Selahattin Demirta\u015f and Figen Y\u00fcksekda\u011f, who have been jailed since 2016 over \u201clegitimate non-violent political activities and speeches.\u201d<\/p>\n

HRW also said Turkey\u2019s refugee policy increasingly relied on unlawful deportation orders and coercive \u201cvoluntary return\u201d procedures, despite protection claims. It cited cases involving Turkmenistan activists it said were labelled as threats to national security without concrete evidence and warned of the risk of deportation despite interim rulings from Turkey\u2019s Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n

On women\u2019s and LGBT rights, the group said the government used its designation of 2025 as the \u201cYear of the Family\u201d to justify measures that undermined women\u2019s rights and increased pressure on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It pointed to a ministry directive instructing provincial offices to avoid using terms such as gender, sexual orientation and gender identity and said a leaked draft law raised concerns about potential new criminal penalties and restrictions on gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch said the authorities also used references to public morality to justify investigations of artists and censorship of online platforms. It cited the indictment of Manifest, an all-female music group, on charges including obscenity, and said Istanbul Pride was banned for an 11th consecutive year.<\/p>\n

The report also cited economic conditions, noting an official annual inflation rate of 31 percent at the time of writing and warning that rising food and rent costs put pressure on low and middle-income households\u2019 right to food and housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: \u0130stanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu at a court hearing Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday that Turkey\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[422,423,425,426,1179,312,1180,1181,427,428,429,431,131,132,155,1182],"class_list":{"0":"post-922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stockholm","8":"tag-ak-party","9":"tag-akp","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-erdogan","12":"tag-european-court-of-human-rights-ecthr","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-human-rights-watch-hrw","15":"tag-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu","16":"tag-justice","17":"tag-law","18":"tag-oppression","19":"tag-rule-of-law","20":"tag-stockholm","21":"tag-sweden","22":"tag-turkey","23":"tag-turkish-industry-and-business-association-tusiad"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}