The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled Tuesday that Turkey violated the right to liberty of women’s rights activist Adalet Kaya, now a lawmaker, by jailing her pending trial on terrorism charges in 2020 without reasonable suspicion.
In its unanimous judgment, the court found violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), ruling that Turkish courts had failed to cite evidence showing a clear link between Kaya’s actions and membership in a terrorist organization when ordering or extending her pretrial detention.
Kaya, who now represents Diyarbakır in parliament for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), was president of the Diyarbakır-based Rosa Women’s Association when police detained her on May 22, 2020, over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK). A court ordered her jailed the next day on charges of membership in an armed terrorist organization. She was released pending trial on August 18, 2020.
The accusations against Kaya were based largely on the Rosa Women’s Association’s alleged ties to Kurdish women’s organizations that authorities linked to the PKK, statements from an anonymous witness, her participation in demonstrations and press events, intercepted telephone conversations and materials seized during searches.
The PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, announced in May 2025 that it would disband and end its armed campaign as part of a renewed peace process. The KCK is an umbrella organization that includes the PKK and other Kurdish groups.
The ECtHR found that the anonymous witness’s allegations linking the Rosa Women’s Association to the PKK were vague and unsubstantiated and that the evidence did not establish that the association’s leaders had acted on instructions from the PKK. The court also noted that the association was lawfully registered and that there was no indication it had engaged in unlawful activities.
The court further found that Kaya’s speeches at demonstrations and press events constituted an exercise of her right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the ECHR, while the association’s activities fell within the scope of Article 11, which protects freedom of assembly and association. It noted that Turkish authorities had listed events she attended and slogans chanted at them without explaining how they substantiated the allegations against her.
The court also questioned whether prohibited publications, a banner and a handwritten note seized from the Rosa Women’s Association established its alleged links to other Kurdish women’s organizations. It separately found that publications and a yellow, red and green cloth seized during searches did not, by themselves, justify suspicion that Kaya belonged to a terrorist organization.
Kaya was elected to parliament in May 2023 while the criminal case against her was still pending. The Diyarbakır 11th High Criminal Court suspended the proceedings on March 4, 2024, because of her parliamentary immunity.
The ECtHR ordered Turkey to pay Kaya 4,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages and 1,000 euros for legal costs and expenses.
