Human Rights Watch has called on Turkey to use a landmark call from a jailed militant leader telling his organization to lay down its arms as a catalyst to end its “abusive use of terrorism charges” to criminalize and silence government critics including politicians, journalists, lawyers and activists, Turkish Minute reported.
In a landmark declaration read out in İstanbul on Thursday, jailed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) founder Abdullah Öcalan called for his Kurdish militant group to lay down its arms and disband.
HRW said in a statement on Friday that thousands of people remain arbitrarily detained or on trial for alleged PKK links on the basis of their legal and nonviolent activities against the backdrop of the call by Öcalan.
Among them are politicians Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, jailed for over eight years despite European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings calling for their immediate release.
“The Erdoğan government should seize the moment of this landmark call to correct course and as a first step drop unfounded criminal charges against those accused of PKK links simply for exercising their rights to free speech, association and other lawful activities,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The government should review all convictions under the same charges and embark on reforms to end the misuse of criminal law and detention of government critics.”
The widespread misuse of terrorism charges, accusing people of links to the PKK, has been the source of serious and pervasive violations of human rights in Turkey for many years, as documented in numerous reports by Human Rights Watch. Abuses include the criminalization of protest and the abusive prosecution of Kurdish politicians, among them elected mayors, lawyers, journalists and others. The ECtHR has repeatedly found that Turkish authorities have violated the rights of people convicted of PKK links on the basis of protests, speeches and other nonviolent activities.
Human Rights Watch said a pattern of terrorism investigations and detentions over the past four months initiated by the Istanbul chief public prosecutor against dozens of politicians, activists, lawyers and journalists has been a stark demonstration of political abuse of the justice system to curtail the rights of the political opposition and perceived government opponents.
Targeted are politicians mainly from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
As a result of these investigations, 10 DEM Party mayors and two CHP mayors have been removed from office, and some of them have been arrested on terrorism-related or other charges, which the opposition calls politically motivated.
“The Erdoğan government committed in October 2024 to end the decades-long conflict with the PKK through direct negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed PKK leader, but simultaneously it has escalated a crackdown on the legal political opposition and on political and civic activism,” Williamson said. “Abusive prosecutions and arbitrary detentions of elected opposition politicians and government critics on wholly dubious evidence have no place in any society based on the rule of law and should never be part of conflict resolution.”
