A United Nations special rapporteur on Thursday condemned Turkey’s continued use of counterterrorism laws to imprison human rights lawyers and activists, calling it a violation of international human rights obligations.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, expressed alarm over the long-term detention of nine Turkish human rights lawyers and activists who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on what she described as “spurious terrorism-related charges.”
The group includes eight members of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) who were arrested between 2018 and 2019 and convicted under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law: Barkın Timtik, Aytaç Ünsal, Özgür Yılmaz, Behiç Aşçı, Engin Gökoğlu, Süleyman Gökten, Selçuk Kozağaçlı and Oya Aslan. They were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison in what has been widely criticized as an unfair trial, known as the ÇHD II trial.
Another arrestee, lawyer Turan Canpolat of the Malatya Bar Association, was imprisoned in 2016 based on the testimony of a client who later admitted he had been coerced. Canpolat was convicted of alleged links to the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, which Ankara accuses of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Gülen movement denies involvement in the coup.
Canpolat was detained in 2016 after responding to a police search at a client’s residence, only to find himself accused based on doctored evidence and coerced testimony. Despite the dismissal of related charges against others implicated in his case and the recanting of key testimony, he remains in prison. His conviction was based on his legal representation of companies later closed by emergency decrees after the coup, a move critics argue criminalizes standard legal work. International legal groups have denounced his imprisonment as a miscarriage of justice, calling for his release.
All nine lawyers are currently held in high-security prisons, and Canpolat has reportedly been kept in solitary confinement for nearly three years without a disciplinary order, a practice the UN expert found “extremely disturbing.”
Lawlor has raised concerns about their cases since the beginning of her mandate in 2020, but Turkey has continued to criminalize their work. “I remain dismayed that the criminalization of their human rights work has not stopped,” she said.
She urged Turkish authorities to comply with international human rights law and guarantee fair appeal hearings for the detained lawyers. “I am ready to discuss this further with Turkish authorities,” she added.
The Turkish government has repeatedly been criticized for using broad anti-terror laws to silence political dissent and imprison journalists, lawyers and activists. Since the 2016 coup attempt, Turkey has arrested thousands on terrorism-related charges, often based on tenuous evidence such as social media posts or association with banned groups.
International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have condemned Turkey for what they describe as politically motivated prosecutions and the erosion of due process. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Turkey in multiple cases, finding that it has violated the right to a fair trial and engaged in arbitrary detention.