An Ongoing Practice: Torture in Turkey

This new report, which is an update of KHRP’s 2004 book Torture in Turkey: The Ongoing Practice of Torture and Ill-Treatment, addresses the continuing practice throughout Turkey of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in light of the reforms of the early 2000s.

Over the years, the international community has condemned the practice of torture in Turkey, and while the government has made significant progress toward reform, inadequate implementation, legislative loop-holes and a surviving mentality conducive to the practice, see the torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees persist as systematic.

In light of reform having slowed, the report looks at the approach of the EU and other countries pressing for Turkish accession and the influence of geo-political strategic concerns that see a ‘margin of latitude’ afforded to Turkey in meeting the objective criteria for accession. Assessing the impact of the reforms carried out in the early 2000s, this report identifies firstly a shift from flagrant to more subtle forms of ill-treatment, leaving few traces or long-term physical signs, as well as an increase in incidences of ill-treatment outside official detention centers, betraying progress reflected by official figures, and secondly an increasingly ‘two tier’ criminal justice system, with increased procedural and custodial safeguards for those detained for ‘regular’ offences and the simultaneous erosion of custodial safeguards for those held under anti-terror legislation.

ISBN 978-1-905592-10-4