This week, the United Nations Committee against Torture will review Türkiye’s record on preventing torture and ill-treatment. Human Rights Watch is among numerous civil society groups that have submitted evidence to the committee that Turkiye’s record on torture has deteriorated greatly since the committee’s last review in May 2016.
In the aftermath of the 2016 military coup attempt, there was a steep rise in reports of police detaining people en masse and torturing them for allegedly having connections to the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the government accuses of leading the coup attempt.
Eyup Birinci, a former school teacher in the southern town of Antalya, was among those tortured, and Human Rights Watch documented his case at the time. Beaten so badly that he required emergency abdominal surgery, Birinci made numerous complaints of torture that were repeatedly rejected. Only now, after the completion of a new investigation 8 years later, will three police officers and a doctor face trial: two police officers for alleged torture, a third officer and a doctor for ignoring it. Birinci’s case is a rare exception since the Turkish authorities fail to investigate the vast majority of cases of alleged torture, let alone bring them to trial.
Human Rights Watch has also highlighted the Turkish authorities’ failure to investigate a pattern of enforced disappearances including reports of torture. While some of these occurred in Türkiye, other cases occurred overseas and the intelligence services have publicized and celebrated the forced repatriation to Türkiye of individuals they allege are connected with the Gülen movement .
The Committee should also examine Türkiye’s poor record on protecting refugees and migrants against ill-treatment in deportation centers, and the documented cases of torture and shootings of asylum seekers at its borders.
Another urgent and often overlooked issue that the Committee against Torture will need to scrutinize is Turkiye’s responsibility as an occupying power in northern Syria to curb and ensure accountability for torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and other abuses against Kurds and Arabs by its own security personnel and by the Syrian militia groups and police operating under its control.
While the UN Committee is likely to be critical about Türkiye’s progress in stamping out torture, the government of Türkiye shouldn’t require their assessment to realize it is falling well short. It is time it stops ignoring the evidence and takes bold steps to end abuses and punish perpetrators.
