Turkey is deepening its human rights crisis by ignoring top court rulings, imprisoning dissidents on baseless charges, and violently suppressing peaceful protest, Amnesty International said in its 2024 report published Tuesday.
According to the report, the executive’s “interference with the judiciary deepened” with Turkish authorities refusing to implement rulings from both the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Amnesty highlighted that binding decisions in emblematic cases – including those involving businessman Osman Kavala, lawyer and MP Can Atalay, and former opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş – remained unimplemented, raising grave concerns over judicial independence.
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“Victims of human rights violations by state officials continued to face a culture of impunity,” Amnesty stated, warning of “baseless investigations, prosecutions and convictions of human rights defenders, journalists, opposition politicians and others”.
Judicial defiance and political imprisonment
Kavala, imprisoned since 2017 despite a 2019 ECtHR ruling ordering his release, remains behind bars. In January, he submitted a new application to the ECtHR concerning “continuing and fresh violations” of the European Convention on Human Rights. The report noted, “This ruling remained unimplemented despite infringement proceedings against Türkiye [Turkey] initiated by the Council of Europe in 2022.”
Atalay, a lawyer and opposition MP, remained in prison even after “three consecutive Constitutional Court decisions to release him”. The Court of Cassation upheld his conviction, leading to his parliamentary status being revoked.
The report also pointed to the ongoing detention of Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, former co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), despite repeated rulings by the ECtHR declaring their detention politically motivated.
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Political trials and mass detentions
Amnesty criticised high-profile prosecutions that it described as unjust. In the ‘Kobani trial’, 24 Kurdish politicians were sentenced in May 2024 to between nine and 42 years in prison for encouraging protests against the 2014 siege of the northern Syrian town of Kobani (Kobanê). Amnesty said the charges were “politically trumped-up” and based largely on speeches and social media posts.
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Following a February armed attack outside the İstanbul Justice Palace, authorities detained 96 people, including four lawyers from the People’s Law Bureau. Amnesty noted, “Three of the four lawyers… were indicted for alleged ‘membership of an armed terrorist organisation’ without any evidence of their involvement in that crime.”
Protest bans and violent policing
Authorities unlawfully restricted the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Amnesty said, citing bans on LGBTQ+ Pride marches, May Day protests, and vigils held by the Saturday Mothers/People.
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In April, authorities overturned the mayoral election in Van (Wan) and imposed a two-week protest ban. Amnesty documented that “264 people, including 10 lawyers and 15 children were detained”, while “27 people were arbitrarily remanded in pretrial detention”.
In İstanbul, police “arbitrarily detained at least 82 people” on May Day, despite a Constitutional Court ruling that previous bans on demonstrations in Taksim Square had violated constitutional rights.
Pride marches in İstanbul, Antalya, and Eskişehir were also banned, with Amnesty recording that “a total of 27 people were arbitrarily detained” during the events.
Suppression of media and expression
Amnesty highlighted a growing threat to freedom of expression. In July, an exhibition during Trans Pride Week was banned by local authorities. In October, the Supreme Council for Radio and Television (RTÜK) revoked the terrestrial licence of Açık Radyo after a guest mentioned the Armenian Genocide during a broadcast on 24 April.
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RTÜK had previously fined the station and ordered a suspension of its news show. Amnesty reported that the station “had paid the fine but had not adhered to the five-day broadcast suspension”, and its legal appeal remained pending at year’s end.
Crackdown on civil society organisations
Civil society groups were subject to closure, asset freezes, and legal harassment. The Migration Monitoring Association was acquitted of terrorism charges in February but was later shut down in December for allegedly operating in line with “an armed terrorist organisation”. Its assets were frozen in August, and appeals were pending.
The Tarlabaşı Community Centre, which supports marginalised communities in İstanbul, was sealed by local authorities for “operating without a licence”. Administrative proceedings to close it continued, although a civil court ruled in its favour in one legal challenge.
A new espionage law proposal introduced in October was later withdrawn, but Amnesty warned it “would have undermined civil society” due to its vague language criminalising criticism as harmful to state interests.
Rights violations multiply
In October, Hatice Onaran of the Human Rights Association’s Prison Commission was sentenced to over four years in prison for transferring small amounts of money to prisoners. In December, Nimet Tanrıkulu was detained and indicted for “membership of a terrorist organisation” based on “historic travel, participation in civil society events… and mobile phone signals”.
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Amnesty further documented “widespread” violence against women and girls. According to the We Will Stop Femicides Platform, 394 women were murdered in 2024, while another 259 died under suspicious circumstances.
On refugee rights, Amnesty reported that migrants “continued to be unlawfully returned to Syria and Afghanistan” and about 300 Eritreans were deported without due process.
Impunity and climate inaction
Security forces continued to evade justice in high-profile killings. Three police officers accused of killing rights lawyer Tahir Elçi were acquitted in June. In October, former state officials were acquitted in the Ankara Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism (JİTEM) case over enforced disappearances in the 1990s.
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Meanwhile, the Climate Action Tracker rated Turkey’s climate policies as “critically insufficient” to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals.
