Human Rights Watch Submission to the United Nations Committee Against Torture on Türkiye

This submission to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (“the Committee”) ahead of its upcoming review of Türkiye highlights areas of concern Human Rights Watch hopes will inform the Committee’s consideration of the Turkish government’s compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“the Convention”) and suggests questions the Committee should pose to the state party and recommendations.

Introduction: Documentation of torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearances during the reporting period

Since its last review of Türkiye in May 2016, the Committee notes in its 2018 List of Issues prior to reporting (LOIPR), reports by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and other sources, of a high incidence of cases of torture and ill-treatment in formal and informal custody settings in the aftermath of the July 15, 2016 attempted military coup.[1]

Human Rights Watch published two full reports which substantiate those findings and demonstrate that in the course of the year following the failed coup, law enforcement officers and security forces abused detainees who were detained for extended periods and had fewer safeguards under the state of emergency.[2] With many of the detainees subsequently remanded to pretrial prison detention, the task of documenting their allegations has been a complex one, relying on the testimonies of lawyers, who were themselves under threat,[3] medical reports, hand-written testimonies by victims from prison, and an extensive examination of court records in which detainees allege ill-treatment. 

Over subsequent years and after the July 2018 lifting of the state of emergency, Human Rights Watch continued to document regular reports of police ill-treatment on arrest and in formal or unofficial custody settings in different cities, including cases of deaths in police, gendarmerie and military custody.[4] There have been few signs that the Turkish authorities have undertaken effective investigations into such incidents or ensured that perpetrators are held accountable.

Human Rights Watch has documented cases of enforced disappearances of Turkish nationals in Türkiye, reporting on five cases in 2017,[5] and eight cases in 2019-20,[6] as well as documenting cases of Turkish nationals being abducted and forcibly disappeared from countries around the world  and removed to Türkiye where they resurface in custody.[7] The majority of these cases concern men accused of links with the group the Turkish authorities refer to as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY) and hold responsible for the military coup attempt.

In the reporting period, Human Rights Watch has also extensively documented multiple incidents in which members of the security forces have tortured, shot or otherwise violently pushed back Syrian and Afghan men whom they apprehended while attempting to cross the border into Türkiye, as well as the coercion of Syrian and Afghan nationals held in deportation centers to sign voluntary return forms before their summary removal  to Syria or Afghanistan.[8] In March 2024, a Tajik opposition activist living as a registered asylum seeker in Istanbul disappeared, with reports that he was unlawfully removed to Dushanbe where there are fears that he has been tortured in detention.[9]

In areas of northern Syria where Türkiye exercises effective control, Human Rights Watch has documented a pattern of abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, torture and sexual violence in detention by the various factions of a loose coalition of armed groups, the Türkiye-backed Syrian National Army, as well as the Military Police, a force established by Turkish authorities and the Syrian Interim Government in 2018, ostensibly to curb abuses.[10] The report identifies the responsibility of Türkiye as the occupying power to curb and ensure accountability for ongoing abuses including torture and enforced disappearances in areas of Syria under its control.

Concerning Türkiye’s obligation to combat gender-based violence, Human Rights Watch has documented the lack of enforcement of protection orders for women who report domestic violence despite the high number of protection orders Turkish courts issue every year.[11]

Responses to questions in the Committee’s List of Issues prior to reporting (LOIPR) and suggestions for additional questions

Focusing on the indications that there remains an entrenched culture of impunity in Türkiye today and an absence of transparent information about the investigation of allegations of torture and ill-treatment, this submission addresses specific matters the Committee raised in the 2018 LOIPR (citing Convention article and numbered paragraphs).[12] The submission also reflects on the government of Türkiye’s answers to the Committee’s questions and requests for information.[13]

Article 2; LOIPR, paragraph 6:

Human Rights Watch’s research has found little evidence that the Turkish authorities have undertaken effective investigations into the credible allegations, supported by security camera footage and witness statements, that enforced disappearances occurred during the reporting period and especially in the period 2017-19 in Ankara, as well as in some other cities.

There have been several reported cases in which men were forcibly disappeared, and their detention in police custody only acknowledged after their families had lodged multiple complaints seeking investigation of their whereabouts. However, many victims chose not to file their own complaints concerning their disappearance or any torture to which they may have been subjected. Human Rights Watch has concerns that they may have felt under pressure not to exercise their right to pursue complaints out of fear of retaliation or may have been offered release from detention on condition of foregoing complaints.

In at least four other cases of enforced disappearances, however, the victims did file complaints or complained during hearings before courts, and in two cases Türkiye’s Constitutional Court has found procedural violations of the prohibition on torture (article 17 of the Constitution) in terms of lack of effective investigation.[14]

One such Constitutional Court judgment concerned Önder Asan, a teacher dismissed under a state of emergency decree, who alleged unknown individuals abducted him in Ankara on April 1, 2017, took him to an unofficial place of detention in a black Transporter-type van and placed a hood on his head, beat him, and subjected him to electric shocks and threats of sexual violence.[15] He alleged his captors took him out of detention on May 12, 2017 and made him call the police to hand himself in. On that day he was detained and soon afterwards remanded to pretrial detention by a court on suspicion of links with the group the government calls the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). Asan pursued a complaint of being abducted and tortured over a 42-day period. His wife had also lodged multiple complaints with the Ankara prosecutor’s office after his abduction, had tracked down witnesses to the abduction and made every effort to determine his whereabouts and seek accountability.[16]

Human Rights Watch has received no information about any new investigation into which security unit carried out Önder Asan’s abduction and enforced disappearance, and whether there are efforts underway to identify and prosecute perpetrators. The Committee should ask the state party for information about the steps being taken to investigate the enforced disappearance of Önder Asan and to prosecute perpetrators.

LOIPR paragraph 7:

With respect to the Committee’s request for information about the Law Enforcement Monitoring Commission, Human Rights Watch draws the Committee’s attention to a July 4, 2023 government action plan submitted to the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers in the context of its supervision of the implementation of the Batı and others group of cases, 15 European Court of Human Rights judgments regarding issues such as the failure to secure effective investigation into abuses by law enforcement and security forces. The action plan includes details of the data collected by the Law Enforcement Monitoring Commission, established in August 2019, on the number of law enforcement personnel who received disciplinary sanctions for torture, ill-treatment and related offenses.[17] Organized according to the offenses of killing, international injury, excessive use of force, battery, ill-treatment, torture and misconduct, the tables provided in the action plan covering the years 2020-2022 list the number or cases where law enforcement personnel have received a warning, a reprimand, a reduction in salary, deferment of advancement to a higher grade, dismissal from the profession and dismissal from the civil service. The tables indicate that no official has received any form of disciplinary sanction for torture and that just four officials have been removed from the civil service for ill-treatment and five for intentional injury in the 2020-22 period.

The Committee should ask the state party to confirm that these numbers are correct and in light of the apparent paucity of meaningful disciplinary sanctions urge the state party once again to provide information on the number and outcome by year through the reporting period of all criminal investigations and prosecutions of public officials for the crimes of torture, ill-treatment and intentional injury.

LOIPR, paragraphs 8, 10, 12:

While the state party in its November 2016 follow up report asserted that a newly established unit of the ministry of justice and an investigation by the ministry of interior would publicly share the results of the authorities’ examinations of allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention centers in the aftermath of the attempted coup, Human Rights Watch is not aware of efforts to date to make such information public. The Committee should urge the state party to adhere to this commitment.

Human Rights Watch would like to draw the Committee’s attention to judgments by Türkiye’s Constitutional Court finding procedural violations of the prohibition on ill-treatment through failures to conduct effective investigations in a number of cases lodged by individuals detained during the period of mass arrests after the failed coup.[18] In some of these judgments, the Constitutional Court also found substantive violations of “treatment that violated human dignity” to be admissible, and in all cases ordered the payment of non-pecuniary damages and instructed the relevant prosecutors’ offices to conduct new investigations capable of addressing the violations.

The Committee should ask the state party for details of the number of judgments the Constitutional Court has issued finding violations of article 17 of the Constitution in relation to incidents of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials that occurred in the reporting period.

The Committee should ask the state party to provide information about the outcome of the new investigations and any prosecutions in all cases where the Constitutional Court found an article 17 violation and ordered a new investigation.

Taking a sample of these rulings, the Committee may wish to ask the state party about the following cases: 

• Concerning the investigation into police officers connected to the July 2016 beating and torture of Antalya-based former teacher Eyüp Birinci, which necessitated that Birinci undergo urgent abdominal surgery, can the state party explain why three years after the Constitutional Court judgment there is still no prosecution of the perpetrators underway?
• The Constitutional Court determined that the authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the allegations of torture by Savaş Kasap, a former tax auditor, held in police custody in Muğla and then Zonguldak for 25 days from October 22 to November 16, 2016. The Zonguldak prosecutor responded to the Constitutional Court judgment by reopening the investigation and prosecuting a police officer on the charge of intentional injury (article 86/2-1 of the Turkish Penal Code). The penal court of first instance hearing the case determined that the charge should be the more serious offense of torture (article 94), issued a decision that it was not competent to review the case and referred it to the Zonguldak 3rd Assize Court. On June 8, 2023, Zonguldak 3rd Assize Court acquitted the officer on the charge of torture. The case is now at appeal. 

The Committee should enquire about the latest developments in the case, not least because the Zonguldak court accepted that for a period of 12 days, during police detention in Zonguldak, Savaş Kasap was not brought before a doctor for an obligatory medical examination, and the plaintiff’s lawyers provided information that numerous other detainees complained they were tortured in Zonguldak police custody during the period in question.

• The Committee should ask about the current status of former teacher Ahmet Aşık’s second application to the Constitutional Court following a decision by the Afyonkarahisar chief prosecutor’s office not to pursue a case against police officers, defying the Constitutional Court’s first judgment ordering a new investigation into Aşık’s claims of having been tortured in police detention in Afyonkarahisar during his 25-day custody period from August 26 to September 19, 2016.

LOIPR, paragraph 20:

With respect to the state party’s efforts to ensure that women who apply for protective orders receive meaningful protection in practice, Human Rights Watch published a report on the issue of preventive (restraining) and protective orders in 2022.[19]The report reviews 18 cases of domestic violence during the period 2019 to 2022, with one case from 2017, in which women lodged complaints with the police and prosecutors concerning violence by current or former spouses and partners. It shows that while police and courts are issuing preventive and protective cautionary orders, failure to ensure they are observed leaves dangerous protection gaps for women if not rendering them meaningless. Courts often issue cautionary orders for far too brief periods, and the authorities fail to undertake effective risk assessments or monitor the effectiveness of the orders, leaving survivors of domestic violence at risk of ongoing – and at times deadly – abuse. Some perpetrators breach the terms of preventive cautionary orders without penalty. For those who are subject to criminal prosecution and conviction, it often comes late and the penalties are too little to constitute an effective deterrent. In the most severe cases, six examples of which are included in the report, women have been murdered even though the risk they faced was known to the authorities and perpetrators had been formally served with preventive orders.

The Committee should ask the state party to provide detailed statistical annual data on the number of cases in which women murdered by former or current husbands, partners or family members had previously secured preventive and protective cautionary orders and were already therefore on the radar of the authorities.

Article 3; LOIPR, paragraph 21:

With regard to the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in Türkiye, Human Rights Watch acknowledges Türkiye’s record of generosity as host to more refugees than any other country in the world. However, in stark counterpoint to this record, the organization has also over many years conducted detailed documentation demonstrating a pattern of mass pushbacks, shootings and deportations of asylum seekers at borders,[20] coerced “voluntary returns” of Syrians, and a readiness to treat some groups such as Afghans as irregular migrants denying them the possibility in practice to apply for international protection, deporting them en masse and thus ignoring large numbers among them who have clear protection needs.[21] Human Rights Watch’s documentation has included repeated and credible allegations by detainees that guards in deportation centers beat, threatened and otherwise ill-treated them, often with the aim of coercing them to sign voluntary return forms to disguise the fact of refouling them to countries where they would be at risk of persecution and without accepting applications for international protection. 

The Committee should ask the state party to affirm its commitment to upholding the obligation not to subject Syrians to refoulement, regardless of whether or not they have temporary protection status, and not to use the fact that some are living and working in a city other than where their temporary protection ID and address are registered as an excuse to detain them, coerce them into signing voluntary return forms and then deport them.

The Committee should ask the state party how many and the outcome of any disciplinary investigations, criminal investigations and prosecutions there have been of law enforcement officials, soldiers or other public officials specifically in relation to allegations by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants of ill-treatment and shooting in border regions and torture and ill-treatment in removal centers.

The Committee should ask the state party whether there is an investigation underway to determine the circumstances in which Tajik opposition political activist Sukhrob Zafar was forcibly disappeared in Istanbul in March 2024 and unlawfully removed to Dushanbe where there are credible fears he has been tortured in an unknown place of detention.[22]

Article 5:

Referring in particular to Convention article 5/1a, Human Rights Watch draws the Committee’s attention to the organization’s detailed documentation of egregious human rights violations including abductions, torture, sexual violence and extrajudicial killings by various factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), as well as the Military Police and members of the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish intelligence agencies, including the National Intelligence Organization (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, MİT) and a number of military intelligence directorates in the areas of northern Syria where Türkiye exercises de facto control as an occupying force. After its military operations since 2016 in the predominantly Arab region north of Aleppo that includes Azaz, al-Bab, and Jarablus, the previously Kurdish-majority Afrin, and a narrow strip of land along Syria’s northern border between the ethnically diverse towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain, Türkiye bears direct responsibility for many of the detention-related abuses among other violations that continue to occur in those territories.

The Committee should ask the state party to supply detailed information about the steps it is taking to halt acts of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment committed by its military forces and intelligence personnel, together with affiliated local militias, that constitute not only human rights violations but potential war crimes and ensure that all individuals under its control, including military personnel and armed groups, adhere to international human rights law and humanitarian law, in particular the absolute prohibition on torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Committee should ask the state party to provide details about the number and outcome of any investigations into allegations that Turkish Armed Forces and intelligence agencies operating in the occupied territories are involved in torture and rape of civilians, as well as other serious violations including arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings, which would constitute both serious human rights violations and potential war crimes.

Recommendations

The Committee should recommend that the government of Turkey undertakes the following urgent measures:

Concerning the effective investigation of torture and ill-treatment

• Ensure that all video and audio recording devices, whether from armored personnel carriers employed during security operations, or from police and gendarmerie stations during all interviews with suspects in custody, and in all locations in police and gendarmerie stations, are operational at all times, cannot be tampered with or erased, and are promptly and routinely made available to public prosecutors for purposes of investigating allegations of human rights violations;
• Ensure that prosecutors investigate the responsibility of commanding officers where law enforcement officials are alleged to have perpetrated acts of ill-treatment including torture. Commanding officers who know or should have known of such acts, and who fail to take action to prevent and punish them, should be included in prosecutors’ investigation and, where appropriate, face sanctions;
• Ensure that effective and meaningful disciplinary sanctions alongside criminal sanctions are imposed on law enforcement officials who engage in torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
• Ensure that commanding officers who know or should have known of such acts, and who fail to take action to prevent and punish them also face disciplinary sanctions;
• Suspend from active duty officers under investigation for torture and other ill-treatment and ensure their dismissal if convicted;
• Make the Forensic Medical Institute both functionally and formally independent from the Ministry of Justice;
• Urgently lift restrictions on access to places of detention by representatives of independent non-governmental organizations, medical professionals, and members of local bar associations.

Concerning the investigation of abuses committed in areas of Syria where Turkey exercises de facto control

• Conduct a transparent, thorough, and impartial investigation into allegations that Turkish Armed Forces and intelligence agencies and affiliated local militias, operating in the Syrian occupied territories, are involved in the torture and rape of civilians, as well as other serious violations, including arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings, which would constitute both serious human rights violations and potential war crimes.
• Cooperate fully with independent and impartial investigations by international bodies, such as the United Nations Commission of Inquiry and human rights organizations, into alleged human rights violations and war crimes including torture, rape and other prohibited ill-treatment;
• Ensure full and unhindered access for international and independent monitors to Turkish-occupied territories, including the prisons and detention centers run by the Military Police and those of the various factions, as well as the military courts;
• Establish robust oversight mechanisms to monitor the conduct of all Turkish and Turkish-aligned forces and promptly address any reported abuses;
• Hold those responsible for abuses accountable, including through fair and transparent trials;
• Ensure the elimination of all makeshift or unofficial jails and detention centers belonging to Syrian National Army factions;
• Develop and implement, through a transparent and participatory process and, in accordance with international standards, a reparations program for all victims of serious human rights violations committed by Turkish forces and local forces Türkiye controls since it conducted a military incursion and occupied territories of northern Syria. Reparations should include public acknowledgment of victims’ suffering, compensation, psychosocial and physical rehabilitation.

Concerning legal reforms

• Repeal the provision in the Anti-Terror Law that restricts the right of a detainee in police or gendarmerie custody suspected of terrorism offenses to legal counsel for the first 24 hours at the request of a prosecutor and on the decision of a judge;
• Revise appendix article 2 of the Anti-Terror Law, and article 4 of the Law on the Powers and Duties of the Police, to ensure that the use of force by law enforcement officials is compatible with relevant international standards that provide that lethal force be used as a last resort where necessary in order to protect life;
• Revise Law 4483 on the Trials of Civil Servants and other public officials, and take any other necessary legislative measures to ensure that civil servants, including police and other law enforcement officers of all ranks, can be prosecuted without administrative authorization for all serious crimes or abuse of power.

Concerning adherence to the prohibition on refoulement

• Immediately halt all summary pushbacks of asylum seekers from Turkish territory at Türkiye’s borders;
• Affirm the commitment to upholding the obligation not to subject Syrians, Iranians, Afghans and other groups at risk to refoulement;
• In the case of Syrian nationals, adhere to this obligation regardless of whether or not the individual has temporary protection status, and regardless of whether the individual is living and working in a city other than where their temporary protection ID and address are registered;
• End the practice of coercing Syrians and other groups into signing voluntary return forms as a pretext to deport them.

Concerning efforts to combat violence against women and girls

• Ensure that the Ministry of Justice Department of Judicial Statistics supplies and publishes detailed disaggregated data about the outcome of criminal investigations, prosecutions, convictions, and acquittals of perpetrators of violence against women and domestic violence under all articles of the Turkish Penal Code, focusing not only on murder but also on cases of physical assault, rape and sexual violence (including marital rape), verbal and online or other harassment, threats, insults, stalking, attacks on property, and any other relevant offenses