The Human Rights Association (İHD) has introduced its annual report covering human rights violations in 2022, which it presented as evidence of Turkey’s inability to implement its domestic legislation and international treaty obligations regarding human rights, the Evrensel newspaper reported on Tuesday.
During a press conference at association headquarters İHD Chair Eren Keskin said the climate of impunity surrounding rights violations committed by state agents continues to prevail and that the outlook is grim in terms of fundamental rights such as the right to life, the prohibition of torture, freedom of expression and freedom of association.
The findings of the report include 20 people who were shot dead by security forces for failing to comply with orders to stop, one journalist who suffered a fatal attack, 81 prisoners who died behind bars and 367 women who died in femicides. Hate crimes resulted in the death of six Syrians, one Kurd and one Afghan.
At least 1,452 people were mistreated in custody and 277 were mistreated in prisons. Security forces physically assaulted 4,553 people during their disproportionate interventions in demonstrations. More than 7,000 people were detained over their attendance at demonstrations, and 119 faced criminal investigations.
Provincial and district governor’s offices banned 10 rallies, 14 commemorative events, 31 concerts, seven festivals, six theater shows and four press conferences.
Media regulators imposed advertising bans on four newspapers for a total duration of 17 days as well as fines on 58 TV broadcasters.
In recent years many reports published by Turkey-based NGOs and international observers have documented the collapse of human rights protections in the country, which has been scoring worse than Russia and Belarus in indexes related to the rule of law and media freedoms.
