10 December 2024
On the 76th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
With the awareness that all human beings are equal in dignity and rights,
Against inequality, injustice, poverty, discrimination and warfare,
We persistently defend peace, democracy and human rights values!
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in the 76th years of its adoption, keeps illuminating the path of humanity as the most significant founding document of our age.
The Universal Declaration, consisting of 30 articles, was adopted and proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, gathered in Paris on 10 December 1948, after a long period of work within the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was put into force in Turkey through being published in the Official Gazette on 27 May 1949. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was put into force in Turkey through its publication in the Official Gazette on 27 May 1949. Two years later, in 1950, the UN General Assembly, declared 10 December as “International Human Rights Day”.
United Nations was founded with the aim of creating an international system based on the ideals of peace, human rights and democracy to ensure that grave humanitarian destruction of the Second World War never happens again. The UDHR has a fundamental and indispensable place in the institutionalisation of this system, in the search for dignity, equality and justice of the humanity. At the stage reached today, regrettably, these ideals have fallen far behind. An international order based on the rights and freedoms enshrined in the UDHR has still not been established. The United Nations, is not effective enough to put an end to inequality, injustice, racism, discrimination, colonialism and authoritarianism that have prevailed globally. The military and economic unions formed by powerful states based on relations of interests, and the war policies pursued have rendered the peoples unable to exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, as in Ukraine, Gaza and nowadays in Syria, and have led to a major humanitarian crisis. The gradual retreat of States from their commitment to democracy and law and their reluctance to fulfil their obligations under international human rights treaties, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have weakened human rights, which is one of the most crucial achievements of humanity, both as a system of reference and as a monitoring mechanism, and have led to a serious crisis in the global human rights regime.
In spite of all the adversities experienced, peoples all over the world are rising their objections through their demands for freedom, justice, equality and human rights. The response of the states and governments to these objections is to make all kinds of violence systematic and widespread and to impose it on societies as the sole truth of the life. Today, in the face of severe crisis all over the world, our most fundamental responsibility is to defend human rights and reactivate its founding role.
Turkey is experiencing this crisis with all its intensity and gravity. Turkey has been governed by a state of emergency regime since 2016, first directly, and as of 19 July 2018, although it is said to have been officially lifted, it has become permanent through many regulations. This situation/process, has led to the abandonment of the constitutionalism and rule of law, which restricts the force of political power. Thus, arbitrariness and uncertainty have become the main elements of the public/political sphere. The power to create uncertainty, which the political power uses particularly as a management technique, enables it to further centralise its power and increase its pressure and control over the society.
As a result of the policies of the political power that turn every issue of the country, from the economy to public health, into a security issue, polarise society, that are based on violence inside and outside the country, and make conflict and war the only method to solve especially the Kurdish question and international problems, grave violations of the right to life were experienced in 2024. People from very different social groups lost their lives because of either direct violence by the law enforcement or of structural violence and/or by third parties that arise through the failure of the state to undertake its responsibility to “prevent and protect.”
Despite the fact that torture is absolutely prohibited by the constitution and universal law and is crime against humanity, it has remained to be the most dominant human rights problem also in 2024 in Turkey. Acts of torture and ill-treatment at official custodial places as well as extra-custodial places, in the streets and outdoors or in spaces like homes and offices along with the intervention of the law enforcement in peaceful assemblies and demonstrations have come to bear a novel dimension. One can argue that the whole country has virtually become a space of torture today because of the political power’s pattern of governance that is based on repression and control.
It is also quite worrisome that enforced disappearances/abductions, which account for one of the most disgraceful human rights violations in recent history and qualify as a crime against humanity, have also been seen again since the state of emergency was declared in 2016.
Prisons, which are an unmediated sign of a state’s respect for human rights, have become extremely overcrowded today because of the political power’s abuse of law as an instrument of repression and intimidation in Turkey. Prisons, ranging from the right to life to torture, to right of access to healthcare, are places where grave and serious rights violations are committed. The situation of prisoners having been served aggravated life imprisonment whose number we have learned clearly from the “Concluding Observations” on the Fifth Periodic Report of Turkey of the UN Committee Against Torture that they are about 4000 prisoners and single or small group isolation practices in prisons, notably in İmralı Prison, have become a chronic problem that remain unsolved.
The political power’s restrictions on freedom of expression and opinion, which constitute one of the lifelines of democratic societies, specifically its alarmingly increased pressure and control over the press and human rights defenders continued in 2024 as well. While there are more than 15 regulations in the legislation that form obstacles to the exercise of freedom of expression, it is completely unacceptable that a new regulation known as the “Law on Agent of influence” is brought to the agenda. In case that such a regulation is made, this will remove the essence of the right to freedom of expression and render this right completely unusable.
2024 has been a year during which restrictions on and violations of freedom of assembly and demonstration have been the rule, while the enjoyment of freedoms has been the exception just like the previous year. Individuals and groups from almost all social segments, particularly Kurdish electors who protest the appointment of trustees against their will in replace of the mayors they have elected, have not been able to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and demonstration due to bans imposed by civilian authorities and/or actual interventions by the law enforcement.
Freedom of association, is one of the fundamental rights essential for democracies to function. In Turkey, citizens are unable to exercise their freedom of association because they are unable to come together collectively to take action and express their opinions, and they are unable to participate in the civil and public sphere in an organized manner to shape their collective future. In 2024, many members and executives of human rights organizations, associations, foundations, labor and professional organizations and political parties were detained and arrested, and lawsuits were filed against them in an attempt to put pressure on them. The appointment of trustees, which is an expression of a local government regime based on the usurpation of the will of the voters and citizens, in complete contradiction with the principle of the rule of law, human rights and democratic values, is also a severe violation of freedom of association.
The Kurdish issue remains one of the most fundamental challenges before Turkey’s democratization. The armed conflict that broke out again immediately after the general elections of 7 June 2015 is still going on not solely because the government primarily failed to take sincere and coherent steps for the peaceful and democratic solution of the Kurdish issue, but also with the impact of developments in the Middle East and is bringing about gross human rights violations, notably violations of the right to life. We, as human rights defenders, have always argued for the democratic and peaceful solution of the Kurdish issue. Considering the latest development in the Middle East and threat of war spreading in waves, our insistence on peace and solution is getting stronger. We therefore demand an immediate cessation of the conflicts. Following the establishment of a non-conflict environment, this state of non-conflict should be strengthened and monitored as well as genuine and effective programs should be developed by all parties to enable reconciliation.
We have well understood what the decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention means for women and LGBTI+’s: hundreds of women were killed by men in 2024; LGBTI+’s were subjected to discriminatory, phobic and hateful attacks; peaceful assemblies and demonstrations for women’s and LGBTI+ rights were banned and or violently intervened and prevented; hundreds of women and LGBTI+ were detained under torture and other forms of ill-treatment; anti-LGBTI+ hate rallies were held with the personal support of the authorities and deepening discrimination in all aspects.
Asylum-seekers/refugees that have now become a part, a primary component of the society in Turkey are still being intensively subjected to all kinds of discrimination and abuse, hate speech and economic exploitation. In 2024 asylum-seekers and refugees, who have been subjected to racist hate crimes and violence lost their lives, as it is seen in Kayseri case. Refugees and asylum-seekers, who are most deeply affected by all the physical, psychological, social and economic consequences of the severe crisis in the country, have unfortunately been ignored and even discarded by our society.
Turkey is going through one of its most devastating economic crises for quite a long time. The economic crisis and profound impoverishment caused by years of neoliberal economic policies based on borrowing, war and conflict expenditures lead to gross violations of human rights that makes it completely impossible for citizens to sustain both their biological and social lives. Cost of living, unemployment, poverty, precarity and disorganization hit women, children, refugees and asylum seekers the most. Under these conditions, the hard-won rights of workers and laborers should be preserved, inflation figures should not be manipulated, the right to severance pay should respected and work-related murders should be prevented. Workers’ and laborers’ rights-seeking protests should not be banned, the right to unionization, strike and collective action should be guaranteed.
Lastly, as we have always emphasized, we, whose raison d’être is to create a country and a world where human rights violations end and justice, peace and democracy are established, will continue to document, report and make violations visible despite all difficulties, thereby preventing them and fighting impunity and resolutely upholding the founding values of human rights.
Human beings are human beings with their rights
We see, we do not remain silent, we struggle
TÜRKİYE İNSAN HAKLARI VAKFI İNSAN HAKLARI DERNEĞİ
HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION OF TURKEY HUMAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION
T: +90 (312) 310 66 36 T: +90 (312) 230 35 67-68-69
F: +90 (312) 310 64 63 F: +90 (312) 230 17 07
tihv@tihv.org.tr posta@ihd.org.tr
www.tihv.org.tr www.ihd.org.tr
Click to read joint report on 2024 human rights violations in Turkey by İHD and HRFT: 2024 Data on Human Rights Violations in Turkey_JR