The failure of Turkey's human rights action plan

The Turkish government has failed to carry out most of the actions in the new human rights action plan that was announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March.

President Erdogan had introduced the plan saying it was based on 11 principles, nine aims and 50 goals and consisted of 393 actions that would be implemented over a two-year period.

According to Mustafa Yeneroglu, a deputy from the opposition DEVA Party, the government’s failure to reach important milestones indicated a failure of the action plan.

“The government has made a habit of not keeping its promises,” he said. “Unfortunately, the human rights action plan is one of these promises.”

Yeneroglu pointed out that arbitrary arrests were still common in Turkey and the judiciary was far from being independent as it was under government pressure.

Ozturk Turkdogan from the Human Rights Association (İHD) said despite promising the improvement of human rights, Turkish authorities had done the opposite. “The maximum period of detention was extended to 12 days [as of July 31], and governors can easily ban public demonstrations,” said Turkdogan.

He said prisoner rights had deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic and that authorities were using COVID-19 measures as a pretext to prevent prisoners from seeing their loved ones. 

“Vaccination rollouts in prisons should have been completed already,” he said. “This includes vaccination of guards and administrators.”

Although restrictions for such large gatherings as weddings and concerts have been lifted and inmates have been vaccinated, the families can only see their loved ones behind glass panels during non-contact visits.

Erdogan’s human rights action plan received little appreciation, apparently because thousands of people including intellectuals, politicians and journalists are behind bars despite rulings from the European Court of Human Rights for their immediate release, such as Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş and businessman Osman Kavala.

Following a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, Erdogan launched a massive crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, which led to the prosecution of thousands of people on trumped-up terrorism or coup charges.