The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended that Turkey be placed on the State Department’s Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom, according to its 2025 annual report.
According to the report, religious freedom conditions in Turkey continued to follow a troubling trajectory in 2024. The designation emphasized challenges faced by religious minorities in Turkey, including restrictions on legal recognition, access to places of worship and clergy residency, despite some government efforts to restore historic religious sites.
The report states that under the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan religious minorities, including Alevis, Protestant Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses, encounter barriers to legal recognition, constructing or administering houses of worship and securing legal residence for foreign-born clergy.
The government’s emphasis on Sunni Islam as central to Turkish national identity has marginalized non-Sunni Muslims, non-Muslims and secularists, with state institutions, including schools, reinforcing this narrative.
According to the report, Turkey’s Penal Code Article 216, which prohibits incitement of hatred based on religious differences, is frequently used by authorities to criminalize perceived blasphemy against state-approved interpretations of Islam.
In January 2024 the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) filed a criminal complaint against writer Sevan Nişanyan for disparaging on YouTube the İslamic call to prayer. In February lawyer Feyza Altun was detained by the Beykoz Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in İstanbul for a social media post denouncing Sharia law. She was released the next day under an international travel ban and police parole but received a nine-month deferred sentence in May.
Protestant Christians face zoning restrictions, bans on training Turkish-born clergy and a lack of burial rights for Turkish Protestants. Jehovah’s Witnesses encounter financial penalties for conscientious objection. Authorities have also imposed national security bans on foreign Protestant clergy legally residing in Turkey, with the Constitutional Court ruling in February 2024 that such measures, including re-entry bans and permit cancellations, did not violate religious freedom.
Historical religious communities, including Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic groups, also face challenges. In May 2024 the government converted Istanbul’s Byzantine-era Chora Church, a former museum, into a mosque, sparking criticism. Eastern Orthodox clergy faced delays in renewing residence permits, exacerbating constraints since the 1971 closure of the Halki Theological School, which halted domestic clergy training.
Turkey hosts one of the world’s largest refugee populations, including Uyghur Muslims, Gonabadi Sufis, Baha’is and Christian converts fleeing persecution from countries like China and Iran.
The report documented that some refugees face long waits for third-country resettlement, restrictions on internal movement and risks of arbitrary detention and deportation. In September 2024 Turkish authorities deported a Gonabadi Sufi refugee to Iran, where he was detained in Evin Prison, facing the religious persecution he had fled. The report also noted that authorities denied refugee claims of some Iranian Christian converts, inaccurately asserting that deportation to Iran posed no safety threat.
Jewish communities in İstanbul and Ankara have expressed appreciation for police protection but voiced concerns over political leaders’ rhetoric about Israel, which has drawn on antisemitic narratives, fostering hostility.
According to the report, despite the constitution affirming secularism and freedom of religion, the authorities tightly control religious affairs, often favoring Sunni Muslim institutions.
Religious freedom challenges extend to education, where compulsory “religious culture and morals” courses emphasize state-approved Sunni Islam, despite a “supra-sectarian” policy. The Ministry of Education’s 2024 “Education System for the Century of Turkey” curriculum overhaul sparked controversy for invoking religious concepts, misrepresenting Alevi traditions and imposing religiously justified norms.
A total of 12 countries are recommended for placement on the State Department’s Special Watch List based on their governments’ perpetration or toleration of serious violations: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the US Congress to monitor, analyze and report on threats to religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state and congress to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief.
