Human Rights in Turkey: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

This article investigates Turkey’s long-term human rights problems and their social and political causes. In the modern sense, Turkey has a human rights history that is nearly two centuries long. Despite this long sociological background, a fully functioning democracy and legal system with competent institutions and established rules have not been built till this day. Furthermore, the country’s occasional progress in furthering fundamental rights has been characterized with tidal backslides of interventions and backsliding as in the case in the post-coup conditions of July 15, 2016, and many other periods that preceded. In this way, considering the history of human rights in Turkey, two contradictory images reflect different realities in Turkey. In the first image, a modernizing, developing and democratizing Turkey is evolving with an unwavering rule of law. The second picture, however, reflects widespread and targeted anti-democratic political processes, during which rule of law and separation of powers are still not achieved and social order is dominated by the law of the ruler. The judiciary is not impartial and independent. Control and balance systems, the social division of labor and fair income distribution are missing in the frame. There is systematic discrimination against certain social segments such as Kurds and some religious groups. The social system is run unjustly and unequally. The deep-rooted problems in the sociology of Turkey are reflected in the constant intervention of the ruling elites to the demands of the civil society for established democratic structures and progress in human rights and freedoms.