Turkey was among the countries with the highest number of documented arbitrary detentions of human rights defenders in 2025, according to a new report by SOS-Defenders, an international human rights defenders initiative.
The report, titled “Censorship by Detention,” identified academic Aslı Aydemir, labor union leader Kemal Irmak, rights defender Suna Bilgin and journalist and LGBTI+ rights defender Yıldız Tar as the four cases documented in Turkey during the year.
Among the 14 countries where SOS-Defenders documented new cases of arbitrary detention in 2025, Turkey and Tunisia tied for the fourth-highest number, with four cases each, behind Afghanistan with 16, Ethiopia with 14 and Guatemala with 10.
SOS-Defenders documented 60 new cases of arbitrary detention of human rights defenders in 14 countries in 2025. Journalists and bloggers were the most frequently targeted group, accounting for 28 of the cases, followed by social and community leaders, NGO members and labor union leaders.
Aydemir, an academic and feminist psychologist, was detained after a protest outside the offices of the satirical magazine LeMan over a controversial cartoon and jailed pending trial on charges that she injured a police officer. She remained in pretrial detention for more than five months before she was released.
Irmak, chair of the Education and Science Workers Union (Eğitim-Sen), was under house arrest for two weeks in March 2025 after the union called a one-day strike in support of university students boycotting classes.
Bilgin, a Kurdish lawyer and human rights defender, was detained at an airport on November 1, 2025, the day she returned to Turkey from abroad, and was jailed pending trial. She was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on charges of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, over activities she said involved peaceful demonstrations and human rights advocacy.
Tar, editor-in-chief of the LGBTI+ news outlet Kaos GL, was detained in February 2025 in an investigation into the Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK), an umbrella organization for left-wing and pro-Kurdish groups, and jailed pending trial on charges of membership in a terrorist organization. Tar was released under judicial supervision in May 2025 but was detained again in June 2026 in a separate terrorism investigation ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara.
Turkish human rights defenders and civil society organizations have faced judicial and administrative measures over the last decade as part of what rights groups describe as increasing pressure by the government to curb dissent and human rights advocacy.
International organizations and human rights groups, including the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union and Amnesty International, have repeatedly raised concerns over restrictions on freedom of expression and association in Turkey.
SOS-Defenders operates under the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and documents arbitrary detention of human rights defenders and coordinates efforts aimed at securing their release.
