Thirty-eight international human rights and lawyers organizations on Monday urged Turkey to halt the terrorism prosecution of the leadership of the Istanbul Bar Association ahead of a court’s expected final ruling this week.
In a joint statement the organizations said the prosecution reflects “a clear misuse of criminal law” and warned that it “strikes at the heart of the independence of the legal profession.”
Prosecutors are seeking the conviction of the bar association’s president and 10 executive board members on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda, citing a public statement issued in December 2024 about the killing of two journalists in northern Syria and the arrest of journalists and lawyers at a related protest in Istanbul.
All defendants face potential prison sentences ranging from three to 12 years if convicted.
“The continued prosecution of the Istanbul Bar Association’s leadership is a damning reflection of the troubled state of the rule of law and democratic norms in Turkey today,” the statement said.
The prosecutor has argued that the bar’s reference to the two people killed in Syria as journalists and its citation of international humanitarian law amounted to terrorist propaganda, alleging the language legitimized the aims of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The group rejected this argument, saying the statement fell squarely within the bar association’s professional mandate. “The Istanbul Bar Association has a statutory and ethical duty to speak out on violations of human rights and the rule of law,” they said, adding that criminalizing such speech “amounts to judicial harassment.”
They warned that the case could set a precedent allowing counterterrorism laws to be used against lawyers for public criticism. “Treating a lawful, rights-based statement as a terrorism offense would expose lawyers across the country to prosecution for carrying out their professional responsibilities,” the statement said.
The organizations also pointed to a related case in which journalists prosecuted over the same protest were acquitted last year, calling the continued case against the bar’s leadership unjustified.
The two journalists were killed on December 19, 2024, when their vehicle was struck near the Tishrin Dam, east of Aleppo, while they were covering clashes between Turkey-backed forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed group spearheaded by Kurdish fighters.
Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization linked to the PKK.
While the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a Turkish drone was responsible for the strike, Turkish authorities have claimed that Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin were not journalists but members of a terrorist organization.
The statement was signed by 38 organizations, including the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and several national and international bar associations and legal groups from Europe, North America and beyond.
