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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Turkish government has been “dismantling human rights protections and democratic norms” on an unprecedented scale over the past 18 years, said an international human rights watchdog on Wednesday.
“President Erdogan is targeting any institution or part of society that stands in the way of his wide-ranging effort to reshape Turkey’s society,” executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) Kenneth Roth said in a report on Wednesday.
“The latest developments against parliamentary opposition, the Kurds, and women are all about ensuring the president’s hold on power in violation of human rights and democratic safeguards,” he added.
Ankara on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, a treaty combatting violence against women, just days after Turkey’s top prosecutor filed an indictment to ban the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Turkish parliament stripped the HDP’s Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary membership on March 17 for a tweet he made in 2016, after being sentenced to two years and a half in prison in 2018. The country’s police detained the MP in a raid early Sunday morning, only to be released later in the day.
HRW said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to withdraw from the Istanbul convention shows the president’s willingness to “use the convention as a pretext to promote a highly divisive and homophobic political discourse.”
“That discourse disingenuously claims women’s rights undermine so-called family values and promotes a hateful and discriminatory view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people,” added the report.
On March 21, the president’s directorate of communications released a statement defending the decision on the grounds of the convention being “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality – which is incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values.”
The report also pointed out Turkey has “repeatedly flouted binding European Court of Human Rights judgments” in the cases of jailed former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas and rights activist Osman Kavala.
Istanbul’s Bakirkoy Courthouse on Monday sentenced Demirtas to an additional three and a half years in jail on charges of “insulting the president” because of statements he made in 2015.
Turkey has faced several other criticisms over the past week.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Liz Throssell said that Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul convention “highlights wider concerns regarding the human rights situation in the country, notably the shrinking of civic space and the lack of meaningful and democratic participation in decision making.”
“We reiterate the importance of Turkey taking actions consistent with its obligations under international human rights law, including relating to freedom of opinion and expression, right of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, including the right to form and participate in political parties, the right to participate in public affairs and the full respect of human rights in any counter-terrorism measures,” she added.
On March 2, President Erdogan announced a new action plan on human rights. “We stress that this should be implemented in conformity with such international obligations,” Throssell said with regard to the action plan.
The European Union threatened Turkey with “political and economic consequences” if Ankara does not take steps to improve relations with Europe, in a report released on Monday, also referring to the deterioration of human rights in Turkey and court actions against the HDP.
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