Discrimination is the Greatest Obstacle to Reconciliation
2 February 2024
In this month’s peace vigil, we would like to draw attention to discriminatory practices, which we regard as one of the most important obstacles to reconciliation in Turkey.
With the establishment of the Republic, the pluralistic social structure of the land we live in was ignored and a state was built on the basis of the official ideology based on the understanding of one nation, one state, one religion, and one language, which feeds on discrimination. In this nation-building process, Turkishness, Sunni Islam, and the Turkish language were imposed on everyone as the “superior culture and main identity” while different ethnic and religious groups were excluded. In addition to these exclusionary practices, the state itself attempted to put Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, and Alevis into a melting pot and destroy them through multi-dimensional systematic assimilation through practices such as the “Law on Relocation and Settlement” (Armenian Deportation Law), Eastern Reform Plans, Exchange Laws and General Inspectorates.
Non-Muslim groups living within the borders of the Republic of Turkey have been forced to migrate or hide their identities as a result of discriminatory policies implemented since the establishment of the republic. The Kurdish people, on the other hand, who have preserved their language and cultural values despite all kinds of oppression, have been struggling for the legal guarantee of their rights and freedoms for a hundred years. In this respect, the Kurdish issue remains one of the main problems that the century-old Republic has still not found a solution to.
One of the most important reasons for the continuation of the established discriminatory policy in the Republic of Turkey is the restrictions on freedom of expression. During the hundred years of the republic, people from all walks of life who worked to confront the grave human rights violations were sometimes deprived of their freedom and sometimes of their right to life because they disagreed with the official ideology. Today, policies of oppression and intimidation continue against all people who discuss, speak, or write about the dark periods in Turkey’s history. For example, Hrant Dink, who was working for the facing of the 1915 genocide and the elimination of the traumas it caused, and Tahir Elçi, who advocated for a non-war solution to the Kurdish issue, were first targeted for their ideas and then murdered in political assassinations. Many intellectuals, academics, rights defenders, and journalists were also sentenced to heavy penalties by the politicized judiciary simply for voicing the grievances created by the official ideology.
The Human Rights Association has been indicating that discriminatory practices were incorporated in the founding codes of the state as the reasons for the violations in almost all of its findings and reports on human rights violations in Turkey. Although fundamental human rights such as the right to life, freedom of expression and association, the right to liberty and security of person, prohibition of torture, freedom of religion and conscience are protected by both domestic and international law, discriminatory practices developed and consolidated by the state in Turkey lead to the lack of a high standard human rights culture and the violation of even basic human rights dozens of times almost every day.
Discriminatory policies that have existed since the founding of the Republic have continued to increase since 2015, when the democratic solution to the Kurdish issue was shelved. In the past decade, the avenues of democratic politics have been closed, bans and pressures on Kurdish language and culture have increased, and Turkey has become a country where all groups considered as “other” feel insecure. Today, Kurds, Alevis, Armenians, Armenians, Christians and Jews, women, LGBTI+ and working classes are constantly subjected to discriminatory policies, while those who oppose these practices are either imprisoned by the politicized judiciary and investigations and prosecutions that have no legal basis, or the authorities try to take them under control through judicial control, etc.
One of the reasons why these discriminatory policies have been implemented for so long is the existence of the same political mindset based on rejection, denial, assimilation, and singularism in the government and opposition. This state of political existence is the greatest obstacle to the exchange of ideas and transformation of reconciliation, a fair distribution of income, unemployment, femicide, freedom of the press, refugee and asylum-seekers rights, LGBTI+ rights, environmental rights, freedom of belief that the peoples living in these lands need.
Discriminatory and marginalizing discourses such as racist nationalism, male-dominated language against women, hate speech against Kurds, Alevis, different beliefs, LGBTI+ persons and anti-Semitism are brazenly expressed by the rulers in the media. These discourses of the rulers mobilize the social groups they influence in a short time and the targeted groups are exposed to both individual and social lynching. Most recently, the Santa Maria Church in İstanbul was gunned down at a time when many people were in the church for religious services and one citizen lost his life. In the aftermath of the February 6 earthquake, there were attacks against asylum-seekers in many cities due to discriminatory language against asylum-seekers and they were deprived of the aid activities carried out after the earthquake.
As human rights defenders, we know that discrimination is the most important obstacle to the struggle for human rights and reconciliation. İHD would, therefore, like to remind everyone once again that discrimination is prohibited by Article 122 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that it will continue to fight against discrimination, racist nationalism, violence against women and hate speech against LGBTI+ persons.
Human Rights Association