Political divisions and power struggles within Turkey’s top courts and increasing reports of corruption within the state and judiciary have further undermined human rights and the rule of law in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) concludes in the Turkey section of its World Report 2025.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his coalition government with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), led by Devlet Bahceli, exert strong control over the media, courts and state institutions, regularly punishing perceived government critics.

“The sergeant’s donkey”

Turks talk of “the sergeant’s donkey”. When the sergeant orders something, you have to do it. When the donkey heehaws, no one cares.

Local and international courts regularly issue rulings not to the liking of the powers that be in Turkey, but they are simply ignored.

Authorities including courts under certain judges continue to ignore "binding" judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that find Turkey in serious violation of specified rights and laws, leading to the perpetuation of those violations, according to New York-based HRW.

For instance, the Turkish authorities have failed to implement a key ECHR ruling that found that the conviction on charges of “membership of a terrorist organisation” of former teacher Yuksel Yalcinkaya, mainly for possessing a mobile phone application called ByLock, something which is allegedly used by the Gulenists, was an arbitrary use of the law that violated the principle of legality.

There are around 8,000 ByLock cases at the ECHR. Following the Yalcinkaya ruling announced last September, a Turkish court disregarded the ECHR and convicted the accused once more on the same charges.

High-profile prisoners Osman Kavala (jailed since October 2017), Cigdem Mater (since April 2022), Can Atalay (since April 2022), Mine Ozerden (since April 2022) and Tayfun Kahraman (since April 2022) remain in prison after convictions on baseless charges.

Turkey flagrantly disregarded an ECHR decision ordering Kavala’s release. That prompted his lawyers to file a new ECHR challenge in January 2024 concerning the continuing violation of Kavala's rights.

In particular, keeping Can Atalay, who was elected an MP in the May 2023 parliamentary elections, behind bars is against any kind of local and international legislation.

The Court of Cassation in Turkey even took the unprecedented step of rejecting two Constitutional Court decisions that Atalay should be released.

Ex-co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP, now known as DEM), namely Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, have been in prison since 2016. They were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms despite ECHR judgments ordering their immediate release.

Local constitutional court decisions published in November 2023 and January 2024 found that two articles of internet law no. 5651 permitting the blocking or removal of content on the specified grounds violated the right to freedom of expression. A January decision repealed the article concerning violations of personal rights.

Courts frequently issue blocking orders for multiple online accounts in one judgment. The Freedom of Expression Association’s EngelliWeb project announced that Turkey had blocked more than one million websites since the 2007 introduction of the "internet law".

In 2023, bne IntelliNews reported on the Turkish judiciary’s “bribe tariff”. In 2024, this publication reported on the country's “assassination tariff”.

In 2021, the ECHR issued a ruling suggesting that criminalising the act of insulting Erdogan was a violation of basic human rights and freedom of speech. In 2022, a fresh record was set for the number of lawsuits opened on insults allegedly dealt to Erdogan.

No scarcity of crisis

Turkey's cost-of-living crisis continued in 2024.

The government has not yet committed to a coal phase-out and it has plans to expand one of the country’s oldest and most polluting coal power plants in southeastern province Kahramanmaras.

Air pollution control regulations do not meet World Health Organization (WHO) standards and are not fully compliant with European Union standards.

Wretched state of journalism

Government control of the media extends to public broadcaster TRT and public newswire service Anadolu Agency, while the majority of television news channels and print media (95% of all media institutions) are government-aligned.

Independent media in the country operate mainly via online platforms.

Authorities regularly order the blocking of websites and platforms or the removal of critical online content or negative news coverage relating to public officials, companies, the president, his family and members of the judiciary.

They typically cite as grounds unspecified threats to national security or public order or violations of personal rights.

Journalists regularly face prosecution under Turkey’s anti-terror law as well as under criminal defamation laws in addition to a series of other laws.

Torture “in a generalised manner”

Provincial authorities regularly ban protests and assemblies of constituencies critical of the government, often flouting domestic court rulings that state such bans are disproportionate.

Police violently detain demonstrators.

In July, the UN Committee against Torture reviewed Turkey for the first time since the marked rise in torture and ill-treatment that followed the 2016 attempted military coup.

The committee’s concluding observations raised concerns that allegations of torture and ill-treatment occur “in a generalized manner, notably in detention centres” and that where prosecutions take place acts of torture are “frequently classified as other crimes.”

Recommendations from the review included ending the practice of reverse handcuffing widely used by the police, and ending “all extrajudicial extraditions and renditions, including of individuals with perceived or real affiliations” to the Gulenists.

The Kurdish question: business as usual

Turkey concentrates military campaigns against the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with air and drone strikes in northern Iraq where PKK bases are located. It also launches strikes in northeastern Syria against the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Since the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in December, Turkey has continued to occupy territories in northern Syria with the stated objective of protecting itself against the Syrian Kurdish de facto administration that largely extends across northeastern Syria and armed groups aligned with the insurgent PKK.

Hundreds of Kurdish activists, former MPs, mayors and party officials are in prison or are serving sentences following convictions for terrorism offences, political activities, speeches or social media posts.

Kurdish journalists are disproportionately targeted.

Since the last local elections held in March 2024, the government has seized nine municipalities, namely seven held by the current main pro-Kurdish party DEM and two held by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Talks with Ocalan "did not address rights deficit of Kurds"

In October, the governing coalition launched talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, incarcerated in Turkey since 1999.

The process did not address the rights deficit endured by the Kurds. The evolving situation in Syria is also an important factor in the latest round of the negotiations.

"No longer a group of psycho jihadists"

The Turkish authorities have failed to curb abuses by their Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly the Free Syrian Army FSA/OSO) and military police proxies in occupied territories of Syria.

Kurds and Arabs have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, ill-treatment, sexual violence and unjust military trials.

Thousands have been forcibly displaced, their property, land and businesses seized.

Western media, meanwhile, have been putting out numerous reports stating that the SNA and its partner Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are no longer a group of psycho-jihadists.

Xenophobic violence against Syrian migrants amidst rising hostility to refugees in Turkey, stoked by political parties regularly weaponising the issue in their political discourse, also continues.

In July, crowds in the city of Kayseri attacked shops and cars of Syrians, while a mob in Antalya killed a 17-year-old Syrian boy.

Deplorable state of affairs for women and LGBT people

The impact of Turkey’s withdrawal via a presidential decree from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (known as the "Istanbul Convention") in 2020 was reflected in a continuing government failure to take adequate measures to curb Turkey's high incidence of gender-based violence and femicide.

The Erdogan government and religious conservative opposition parties regularly use discriminatory political speech amounting to hate speech against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities on the pretext of promoting family values, attempting to appeal to conservative voter bases and fomenting societal polarisation.

This has put LGBT people at great risk. The Istanbul Pride parade was banned for the 10th consecutive year in 2024. Many cities across the country impose similar bans.