TURKEY: ARBITRARY MASS DETENTIONS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

That authoritarian regimes intimidate, threaten or even carry out (or commission) assassinations against critical voices is no secret.

Silencing opposition or disagreeable figures such as journalists, human rights activists is of immense importance to autocrats and dictators for whom they are a thorn in the flesh. They are a threat to the arbitrariness of these rulers. The rulers have various apparatuses at their disposal to meet their aspirations in this regard.

One of these instruments, which the Turkish state implements today, is the mass wave of arrests, which is mainly directed at the Gülen movement.

Since 2014, the Turkish state apparatus has been targeting the Gülen movement and its sympathizers. One of the main tools used by the Turkish security authorities and judiciary is the daily waves of arbitrary arrests of people accused of being inspired by Gülen.

In total, more than 6,140 waves of mass arrests were carried out between 2014 and 2022, and more than 140,000 people were detained. On average, up to 60 people are detained every day in at least three operations.

In addition, we observe that more and more people are arrested for humanitarian aid. For example, on October 18, 2022, a new stage of unlawful arrests was initiated against 704 people -men, women, young and old- on the grounds that they were “trying to help the families of those in prison or released from prison”. This has unfortunately been the case for more than 3 years regarding the Gülen movement.

In our HRDfactsheet we have summarized facts and figures why this is to be judged as a crime against humanity and made various recommendations to remedy these human rights violations.

THE TERM OF THE INQUIRY COMMISSION ON THE STATE OF EMERGENCY MEASURES (ICSEM) IS ENDING

The closure of the ICSEM is important, but there is no concrete change in favor of the victims...

The ICSEM, has taken away people’s faith in the law. In some cases, the ICSEM did not recognize the decision of the Constitutional Court, for example the prominent cases of the ‘Peace Academics’ who were dismissed for signing the ‘Peace Declaration’ were not reinstated.

Furthermore, the ICSEM, committed a constitutional violation and the right for a fair trial was usurped for six years. The abolition of the ICSEM will not fix anything. The ICSEM made many decisions based on the ‘opinion of the institution’. Now those institutions will take judicial action. What really needs to be solved is for citizens to have the right to a fair trial.  The institutional opinion is scandalous from the beginning. It is not clear who is authorized to issue this “institutional opinion”. It is an abstract evaluation. Now the Government is authorizing the institutions that gave those opinions, not to mention that there is no legal definition for the “institutional opinion” in the law.

Closing the ICSEM after 6 years and reassigning it to institutions will prolong the process even more. Institutions will also create a new unit for the files they have received. 6 years of unlawfulness of the ICSEM will be continued within the Ministries or relevant State Departments.

Unless there is a change in the understanding, it does not make much difference whether the ICSEM is abolished or handed over to the Ministries.

The judicial process needs to be accelerated. For 7 years, there are decisions pending in administrative courts. Not only the commission but also the administrative and appeal courts are politicized. Whatever the ICSEM decides, the courts make subjective decisions without any legal evaluation. The closure of the ICSEM is important, but there is no concrete change in favor of the victims.