ARBITRARY DETENTION AND ARREST
June 26: Council of Europe (CoE) released its Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations, which found that as of January 2022 one third of prisoners in Europe were incarcerated in Turkey.
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
No news has emerged of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, a former public sector worker who was sacked from his job by a decree-law during the 2016-2018 state of emergency and who was reported missing as of August 6, 2019 in what appears to be one of the latest cases in a string of suspected enforced disappearance of government critics since 2016.
FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY AND ASSOCIATION
June 26: A Muğla court sentenced two activists to six months, 20 days in prison on charges related to their attendance in an environmental protest against the construction of a coal mine.
June 27: Rights groups announced that five foreign nationals who were among more than 100 people detained at a Pride march in İstanbul are facing deportation.
July 1: The police in İstanbul intervened in a demonstration about those who disappeared in police custody in the 1990s, detaining 22 people.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND MEDIA
June 26: The police in İstanbul detained journalist Merdan Yanardağ due to his televised remarks criticizing the “isolation” imposed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan. Charged with disseminating terrorist propaganda, Yanardağ was arrested by a court the next day.
June 27: The police in Şanlıurfa detained local journalist Mehmet Yetim for sharing a video of an elderly man sexually harassing a two-year-old girl. Yetim was released the same day.
June 27: An İstanbul court ruled to block access to 93 news articles reporting that US and Swedish prosecutors were investigating corruption allegations implicating Bilal Erdoğan, the son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
June 30: The police in İzmir detained 14 people on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda on social media. The detainees were released the next day.
July 2: Courts reportedly blocked access to 396 pieces of online content about a pro-government journalist’s marriage between April 15 and June 15.
July 2: The prosecutors reportedly launched investigations into social media messages posted by politicians, journalists and commentators discussing the possibility of a refugee riot in Turkey similar to recent protests taking place in France.
PRISON CONDITIONS
June 26: Reports revealed that Aytekin Bulut, a sick inmate incarcerated in Tekirdağ, has been denied necessary medication for a month.
July 1: A Kırşehir prison denied medical treatment to sick inmate Süleyman Ayaz.
July 1: A prison administration in Diyarbakır did not respond to a request for a kidney transplant for sick inmate Fırat Nebioğlu, despite the availability of an organ donor.
July 1: An Ankara prison stopped providing sick inmate Nuriye Adet with necessary diet meal prescribed by the doctor on the grounds that she can procure it at the prison cafeteria.
REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS
June 27: Rights groups announced that five foreign nationals who were among more than 100 people detained at a Pride march in İstanbul are facing deportation.
July 29: Reports indicated that 12 Afghan nationals who were held in a migrant repatriation center in Kütahya were hospitalized due to suspicions of poisoning.
July 1: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that Turkish authorities deported 390 Syrian refugees to Turkish-controlled areas in Syria within one week.
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
July 2: The police in İstanbul strip-searched and mistreated one person who was detained during a demonstration.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
June 27: The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) said in a ruling that Turkey’s legal precondition for divorced women to wait 300 days before remarrying amounted to discrimination and a violation of women’s rights to privacy and marriage.