One of the main aspects of IAHRAG’s teamwork is to provide support to the victims of human rights violations.

Submitting complaints to the relevant United Nations bodies is consequently one of the essential tasks of our human rights officers.

For confidentiality purposes, IAHRAG does not disclaim the names and related documents of all the victims it supports.

IAHRAG regularly submits individual petitions to the treaty bodies, mostly to the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture, since Turkey ratified Optional Protocol 1 to the International on 24 November 2006 and recognized the competence of the Committee against Torture to receive and consider individual communications (article 22 of the Convention against Torture) on 2 August 1988.

The United Nations treaty bodies are unfortunately little-known not only among the victims but also among the lawyers in Turkey and consequently underused. Most of the victims and lawyers prefer to submit their cases to the European Court of Human Rights, which Turkey is a part of, although with a famous record for not respecting its decisions.

To date, the Human Rights Committee adopted five decisions against Turkey: Gökhan Acikkollu, CCPR 3730/2020, Mukkader Alakus, CCPR 3736/2020, Özçelik et al., CCPR 2980/2017, Seyma Türukan, CCPR 2274/2013 and Atasoy and Sarkut, CCPR 1834-1854/2008. Pending cases against Turkey are however waiting for decision of the Committee.

Treaty bodies can issue interim measures requests to the State party. The Human Rights Committee issued such measures for instance in the case of Mr. Orhan Inandi, when his whereabout was totally unknown (after his abduction from Kyrgyzstan by the MIT services). 

IAHRAG also submits urgent appeals to the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, such as the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, the Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, etc.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions faces a large number of complaints related to persons in Turkey: (a) arrested and detained for alleged terrorist activities that in reality do not constitute criminal acts but rather exercise of freedoms protected by international human rights law; (b) kept in incommunicado detention and tortured; (c) denied access to lawyer; (d) denied the opportunity to judicially challenge their detention.

The working group constantly reminds in its opinions against Turkey that :

During the past three years, the Working Group has noted a significant increase in the number of cases brought to it concerning arbitrary detention in Turkey. The Working Group expresses grave concern over the pattern that all these cases follow and recalls that, under certain circumstances, widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law may constitute crimes against humanity (see for instance, para. 96, Opinion No. 67/2020)

The Special Procedures also constantly remind their concerns about the framework of anti-terrorism laws implemented in Turkey which include measures that significantly limit the exercise of fundamental freedoms (see for instance OL TUR 13/2020, here).

The Special Procedures can act on individual cases of human rights violations and send communications to States as to the personal situation of victims.

The most recent communication sent to Turkey concerns the situation of Ms. Ayşe Özdoğan, who was arbitrary arrested and detained in spite of her serious medical conditions cancer stage 4 (see the communication sent to Turkey here).