ARBITRARY DETENTION AND ARREST
Throughout the week, prosecutors ordered the detention of at least 50 people over alleged links to the Gülen movement. In October 2020, a UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) opinion said that widespread or systematic imprisonment of individuals with alleged links to the group may amount to crimes against humanity. Solidarity with OTHERS has compiled a detailed database to monitor the Gülen-linked mass detentions since a failed coup in July 2016.
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 EXPRESSION AND MEDIA
January 23: The Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has filed a criminal complaint against Armenian writer and linguist Sevan Nişanyan for his remarks about the Islamic call to prayer (adhan).
January 24: Gendarmes in southeastern Turkey have detained three school principals over their WhatsApp stories commemorating the victims of the 2011 Roboski massacre.
January 24: A local journalist, Sinan Aygül, in eastern Turkey who was attacked by two people connected to the mayor of a Justice and Development Party (AKP)-run municipality last year has been handed down a prison sentence for insulting one of the attackers.
January 26: A Turkish journalist, Ahmet Ayva, was sent to prison in İstanbul after his conviction on terrorism-related charges was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals.
FREEDOM OF RELIGION
January 28: Masked assailants carried out an attack on an Italian church in İstanbul during a service on Sunday, killing one person, Turkey’s interior minister said.
JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE & RULE OF LAW
January 22: An international platform established by four judges associations in Europe to promote the rule of law in Turkey has called on the country to take the necessary steps for the restoration of the rule of law and to comply with rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
January 25: Approximately 23,400 applications from Turkey are pending before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), making it the highest case-count country in 2023, according to statistics from the court.
OTHER MINORITIES
January 26: Yeniden Refah Partisi (YRP) used discriminatory and LGBTI+phobic expressions such as "If there is no morality, there is LGBT!" and "We will drive perverted organizations out of our city" in the videos it published on social media within the scope of local election campaigns for March 31, 2024.
PRISON CONDITIONS
January 23: Family members of female inmates in central Turkey’s Çorum prison have complained of poor conditions and overcrowding.
TORTURE AND ILL-TREATMENT
January 22: Prison guards in Diyarbakır allegedly beat six inmates for greeting a fellow inmate on his way back to his cell from seeing visitors.
January 25: The wards of prisoners in Ankara Sincan High Security Prison No 2 were changed without any justification and some prisoners were subjected to physical and verbal violence of wardens.
January 26: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Wednesday adopted a resolution on torture and ill-treatment in places of detention across Europe, addressing the increase in alleged incidents reported from Turkey in past years.
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION
January 25: According to a Freedom House report on global transnational repression cited by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), Ankara’s campaign primarily targets people affiliated with the Gülen movement, but the efforts of the government have expanded to include Kurds and leftists as well. Turkish authorities have committed 132 incidents, or 15 percent of the total, of direct, physical transnational repression since 2014.
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