Iraq
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person
a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
There were numerous reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings (see also section 1.c., Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, case of Hisham Mohammed). Nongovernmental militias and ISIS affiliates also engaged in killings (see section 1.g.).
The country experienced large-scale protests in Baghdad and several Shia-majority provinces that began in 2019 and lasted through mid-2020. Sporadic protests continued during the year amid a continued campaign of targeted violence against activists. According to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR), 591 protesters were killed from October 2019 until the end of May. For the same period, the IHCHR stated 54 protesters were still missing and that there were 86 attempted killings of activists, 35 of which were carried out successfully.
The government took minimal steps to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths. The prime minister ordered an investigation committee to determine if prosecution should be pursued. The committee is composed of the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, the National Security Service (NSS), and the operations command where the incident took place. The judiciary also investigated incidents at the behest of families of the victims. Although there have been several arrests related to targeted killings, few cases appeared to have moved beyond the investigative phase.
Human rights organizations reported that Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militia groups engaged in killing, kidnapping, and extortion throughout the country, particularly in ethnically and religiously mixed provinces. Unlawful killings by unidentified gunmen and politically motivated violence occurred frequently throughout the country. On May 9, unidentified gunmen purportedly from PMF militias shot and killed prominent activist and protest movement leader Ehab al-Wazni near his home in Karbala. Wazni’s death sparked protests in Karbala that saw demonstrators block roads and bridges with burning tires; dozens of protesters also burned tires and trailers outside the Iranian consulate the same night. The government announced in May the arrest of two suspects based on a third suspect’s confession; the case remained ongoing.
During the year the security situation remained unstable in many areas due to intermittent attacks by ISIS and its affiliated cells; sporadic fighting between the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and ISIS strongholds in remote areas; the presence of militias not fully under the control of the government, including certain PMF units; and sectarian, ethnic, and financially motivated violence.
b. Disappearance
There were frequent reports of forced disappearances by or on behalf of government forces, including Federal Police and PMF units. In May UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that at least 20 activists abducted by “unidentified armed elements” remained missing.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Although the constitution prohibits torture and forced confessions, there is no law setting out the legal conditions and procedural safeguards to prevent torture. Consequently, noncompliance enabled the practice of torture in jails, detention facilities, and prisons to be hidden from effective legal oversight. Moreover, the types of conduct that constitute torture are not legally defined under the law, and the law gives judges full discretion to determine whether a defendant’s confession is admissible, often without regard for the way it was obtained. Courts routinely accepted forced confessions as evidence, which in some ISIS-related counterterrorism cases was the only evidence considered. Numerous reports from local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) indicated that government officials employed torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Federal Police, Popular Mobilization Forces, and certain units of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Asayish internal security services, operated with impunity.
For example on July 28, social media outlets circulated widely news of the death of a young man, Hisham Mohammed, who was severely beaten by police officers during his arrest by the anticrime directorate in Basrah Province. His lawyer asserted that Mohammed had been arrested because of a similarity in his name to that of a fugitive accused of murder. Mohammed died from his injuries after police officers reportedly employed torture to secure a confession. The Ministry of Interior formed an investigative committee, but its results were not published.
As in previous years, there were credible reports that government forces, including Federal Police, the NSS, and the PMF, abused and tortured individuals – particularly Sunni Arabs – during arrest and pretrial detention and after conviction. Former prisoners, detainees, and international human rights organizations documented cases of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in Ministry of Interior-run facilities and, to a lesser extent, in Ministry of Defense-run detention facilities.
Human rights organizations reported that both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense personnel tortured detainees. According to government forensics officials, some victims showed signs of excessive beating, in addition to bone fractures. Local NGOs reported that deaths at pretrial detention facilities, deportation prisons, and prisons were due to the continuation of systematic torture and the poor conditions in detention centers.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prison and detention center conditions were harsh and occasionally life threatening due to food shortages, gross overcrowding, physical abuse, inadequate sanitary conditions and medical care, and the threat of COVID-19 and other communicable illnesses. In June the Ministry of Justice announced it had carried out a vaccination campaign of its entire prison population against COVID-19. The ministry spokesperson confirmed that prison staff were vaccinated and that there had been no positive cases recorded since May.
Physical Conditions: Overcrowding in government-run prisons was a systemic problem exacerbated by the number of alleged ISIS members detained by the government. The Iraqi Correctional Service, a part of the Ministry of Justice, administered 29 facilities in the country. The Justice, Defense, and Interior Ministries operated 24 detention facilities. In August a senior Ministry of Justice official warned that the overcrowding at Ministry of Justice-administered prisons could lead to the spread of communicable diseases.
In September a senior Ministry of Justice official reported that the five correctional facilities for juveniles held more than 150 percent of their maximum capacity, with more than half of juveniles held for terrorism-related convictions. Local NGOs published photos of overcrowded prison cells and called on the government to improve prison conditions, especially juvenile prisons. According to Ministry of Justice data, in prisons that held alleged ISIS-affiliated women, authorities also detained children up to 12 years old with their mothers. The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights published photos of juveniles being held with adults at detention centers in Ninewa Province.
In October the Ministry of Justice released 68 juveniles under a special amnesty, and in August a senior ministry official stated that 1,300 inmates, including 86 juveniles, received special pardons to reduce overcrowding.
Across the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), there were six correctional centers: three for male prisoners and three for women and juvenile pretrial detainees and prisoners. The centers designated for women and juveniles held both pretrial detainees and prisoners, while male pretrial detainees were held at police station detention sections throughout the IKR. The total number of detainees incarcerated exceeded the designated capacity of each facility. The Independent Human Rights Commission Kurdistan Region (IHRCKR) reported in September that the Erbil Correctional Center, for example, which was built to house 900 detainees, held 1,875 inmates. In some detention centers and police-run jails, KRG authorities occasionally held juveniles in the same cells as adults.
The IHRCKR reported that IKR correctional centers suffered from long-term problems of overcrowding, inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities, use of violence during preliminary detention, and outdated infrastructure at women’s and juvenile centers. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic also adversely affected prisoners’ health, and several died in custody. Limited medical staff was unable to provide adequate medical services to all prisoners.
Administration: The government reported it took steps to address allegations of mistreatment in government-administered prison and detention facilities, but the extent of these steps was not known. Both local and international human rights organizations asserted that judges frequently failed to investigate credible allegations that security forces tortured terrorism suspects and often convicted defendants based solely on coerced confessions. In addition, despite their concerns being raised, authorities ignored physical signs of torture, and the complaints procedures appeared to be neither fair nor effective. Many detainees chose not to report such treatment due to a lack of trust or fear of reprisals.
Prison and detention center authorities sometimes delayed the release of exonerated detainees or inmates due to lack of prisoner registration or other bureaucratic problems, or they extorted bribes from prisoners prior to their release at the end of their sentences. International and local human rights groups reported that authorities in numerous instances denied family visits to detainees and convicts. Guards allegedly demanded bribes or beat detainees when detainees asked to call their relatives or legal counsel.
The KRG inconsistently applied procedures to address allegations of abuse by KRG Ministry of Interior officers or the Asayish security forces. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reported in August and December some IKR prisons failed to respect basic standards and procedural safeguards and that the mechanisms in place to receive complaints of torture did not appear to be effective or to provide remedy.
Independent Monitoring: Corrections Service prisons allowed regular visits by independent nongovernmental observers. Following virtual monitoring visits due to COVID-19 in 2020, observers during the year again were permitted physical visits to prisons. While such visits were irregular due to COVID-19 concerns early in the year, by December the Ministry of Justice reported 40 visits to adult correctional facilities and 20 visits to juvenile correctional facilities had taken place. Visits also included the provision of technical, health, and training support.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The constitution and laws prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention and provide for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. Despite such protections there were numerous reports of arbitrary arrests and detentions, predominantly of Sunni Arabs, including internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
The law prohibits the arrest or remand of individuals, except by order of a competent judge or court or as established by the code of criminal procedures. The law requires authorities to register the detainee’s name, place of detention, reason for detention, and legal basis for arrest within 24 hours of the detention – a period that may be extended to a maximum of 72 hours in most cases. For offenses punishable by death, authorities may legally detain the defendant as long as necessary to complete the judicial process. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for updating and managing these registers. The law requires the Ministries of Defense and Interior and the NSS to establish guidelines for commanders in battlefield situations to register detainees’ details in this central register. The law also prohibits any entity, other than legally competent authorities, to detain any person.
Human rights organizations reported that Iraqi Security Forces, among them the Federal Police, NSS, PMF, as well as the Peshmerga and Asayish security forces in the Kurdistan Region, frequently ignored the law. Local media and human rights groups reported that authorities arrested suspects in security sweeps without warrants, particularly under the antiterrorism law, and frequently held such detainees for prolonged periods without charge or registration. The government periodically released detainees, usually after concluding that it lacked sufficient evidence for the courts to convict them, but many others remained in detention pending review of other outstanding charges.
The law allows release on bond for criminal (but not security) detainees. Authorities rarely released detainees on bail. The law provides for judges to appoint free counsel for the indigent. Attorneys appointed to represent detainees frequently complained that insufficient access to their clients hampered adequate attorney/client consultation. In many cases detainees were not able to meet their attorneys until their scheduled trial date.
Arbitrary Arrest: There were numerous reports of arbitrary arrest or unlawful detention by government forces, including by the ISF, NSS, PMF, Peshmerga, and Asayish security forces. There were no reliable statistics available regarding the total number of such acts or the length of detentions. Authorities often failed to notify family members of the arrest or location of detention, resulting in incommunicado detention if not enforced disappearance. Humanitarian organizations also reported that, in many instances, federal authorities did not inform detainees of the reasons for their detention or the charges against them. Many reports of arbitrary or unlawful detention involved suspected members or supporters of ISIS and their associates and family members.
There were reports of Iran-aligned PMF groups also arbitrarily or unlawfully detaining Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, and other members of minority groups in Ninewa Province. There were numerous reports of 30th and 50th PMF Brigades’ involvement in extortion, illegal arrests, kidnappings, and detention of individuals without warrants. Credible law-enforcement information indicated that the 30th PMF Brigade continued to operate secret prisons in several locations in Ninewa Province, which held unknown numbers of detainees arrested on sectarian-based and reportedly false pretenses. Leaders of the 30th PMF Brigade allegedly forced families of the detainees to pay large sums of money in exchange for the release of their relatives.
Human rights organizations reported frequently that KRG authorities arbitrarily detained journalists, activists, and protesters. These detentions included individuals who came to be known as the Badinan detainees, arrested in Duhok Province in 2020 for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Many were denied access to their lawyers and were not informed of the charges against them, nor were their families informed of their whereabouts in a timely manner. Many of those arrested were held in detention for lengthy periods without being brought before a judge, in violation of the law, only to be released without charges (see section 2.a.).
Pretrial Detention: The Ministries of Justice, Defense, Interior, and Labor and Social Affairs are authorized by law to hold pretrial detainees. The NSS intelligence agency and the Counterterrorism Service, which both report directly to the Prime Minister’s Office, may also hold pretrial detainees in limited circumstances, for a brief period. Lengthy pretrial detentions without due process or judicial review were a systemic problem, particularly for those accused of having ties to ISIS.
The Ministry of Justice ran five pretrial detention facilities, the Ministry of Defense ran two, and the Ministry of Interior ran 17 such facilities. In its annual report for 2020, the IHCHR reported 28,853 detainees held in detention facilities under the authority of the Ministry of Interior, 197 under the Ministry of Defense, and 116 under the Counterterrorism Service, the latter of which reported directly to the prime minister and were in the Counterterrorism Command. There were no independently verified statistics, however, concerning the approximate percentage of the prison and detainee population in pretrial detention, or the average length of time held.
The lack of judicial review resulted from several factors, including the large number of detainees, undocumented detentions, slow processing of criminal investigations, an insufficient number of judges and trained judicial personnel, authorities’ inability or reluctance to use bail or other conditions of release, lack of information sharing, bribery, and corruption.
Lengthy pretrial detentions were particularly common in areas liberated from ISIS, where the large number of ISIS-related detainees and use of makeshift facilities led to significant overcrowding and inadequate services. There were reports of detention beyond judicial release dates and unlawful releases. In May a local human rights organization reported that PMF-affiliated militias ran two makeshift detention facilities in Diyala and Salah al-Din Provinces, reportedly holding more than 7,000 ISIS-related detainees without due process or judicial review.
Authorities reportedly held numerous detainees without trial for months or years after arrest, particularly those detained under the antiterrorism law. Authorities sometimes held detainees incommunicado, without access to defense counsel, presentation before a judge, or arraignment on formal charges within the legally mandated period.
KRG authorities also reportedly held detainees for extensive periods in pretrial detention (see section 1.d.). KRG officials noted prosecutors and defense attorneys frequently encountered obstacles in carrying out their work and that trials were unnecessarily delayed for administrative reasons.
According to the IHRCKR, some detainees remained in KRG internal security service facilities for extended periods even after court orders were issued for their release. Lawyers provided by an international NGO continued to have access to and provide representation to any juvenile without a court-appointed attorney.
The constitution and law grant detainees the right to a prompt judicial determination on the legality of their detention and the right to prompt release. NGOs widely reported detainees had limited ability to challenge the lawfulness of detention before a court and that a bribe was often necessary to have charges dropped unlawfully or gain release from arbitrary detention. While compensation is a constitutional right, the law does not allow for compensation for a person found to have been unlawfully detained.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but certain articles of law restricted judicial independence and impartiality. The country’s security situation and political history left the judiciary weak and dependent on other parts of the government. The Federal Supreme Court rules on matters related to federalism and the constitution, and a separate Higher Judicial Council manages and supervises the court system, including disciplinary matters. The parliament amended the Federal Supreme Court law in March and replaced the entire Supreme Court bench in April. The amended law was criticized by both political parties and civil society for formalizing politicized and sectarian appointments to the court, while minority and other civil society groups blocked an effort by Islamist parties to add Islamic jurists to the bench. The amendment and replacement process also removed the only Christian judge from the bench and created a new secretary general position, without voting powers, that was filled by a Christian judge.
Corruption or intimidation reportedly influenced some judges in criminal cases at the trial level and on appeal at the Court of Cassation.
Numerous threats and killings by sectarian, tribal, extremist, and criminal elements impaired judicial independence. Judges, lawyers, and their family members frequently faced death threats and attacks. For example, in January unknown gunmen killed the head of the Dhi Qar Advocates Chamber, Ali al-Hamami, while another lawyer survived an attempted killing two days later in the same province.
The Kurdistan Judicial Council is legally, financially, and administratively independent from the KRG Ministry of Justice, but KRG senior leaders reportedly influenced politically sensitive cases. The IKR’s strongest political parties also reportedly influenced judicial appointments and rulings. A December 22 joint UNAMI and OHCHR report raised concerns regarding documented statements by KRG officials that “may amount to undue influence in the judicial process, including over the outcome of any subsequent appeal proceedings.”
Trial Procedures
The constitution and law provide for the right to a fair and public trial, but the judiciary did not enforce this right for all defendants. Some government officials, international organizations including UNAMI and OHCHR, and civil society organizations (CSOs) reported that trial proceedings fell short of international standards.
By law accused persons are innocent until proven guilty. International NGOs throughout the year indicated that judges in ISIS-related cases, however, sometimes reportedly presumed defendants’ guilt based upon presence or geographic proximity to activities of the terrorist group, or upon a spousal or familial relationship to another defendant. The law requires detainees to be informed promptly and in detail of the charges against them and of their right to a fair, timely, and public trial. Nonetheless, officials routinely failed to inform defendants promptly or in detail of the charges against them. Trials were public, except in some national security cases. Numerous defendants experienced undue delays in reaching trial.
Defendants’ rights under law include the right to be present at their trial and the right to a privately retained or court-appointed counsel, at public expense, if needed. Defendants frequently did not have adequate time or facilities to prepare a defense. Insufficient access to defense attorneys was a serious defect in investigative, trial, and appellate proceedings. This scenario was typical in counterterrorism courts, where judicial officials reportedly sought to complete convictions and sentencing for thousands of suspected ISIS members quickly, including through mass trials.
Defendants also have the right under law to the free assistance of an interpreter, if needed. The qualifications of interpreters varied greatly. Some foreign missions provided translators to their citizen defendants. When no translator was available, judges reportedly postponed proceedings and sent the foreign defendants back to jail.
Judges assemble evidence and adjudicate guilt or innocence. Defendants and their attorneys have the right, under law, to confront witnesses against them and present witnesses and evidence. They may not be compelled to testify or confess guilt. Nevertheless, defendants and their attorneys were not always granted access to evidence, or government officials demanded a bribe in exchange for access to the case files. In numerous cases judges reportedly relied on forced or coerced confessions as the primary or sole source of evidence in convictions, without the corroboration of forensic evidence or independent witness testimony. The law provides for retrials of detainees convicted due to forced or coerced confessions or evidence provided by secret informants, but local organizations reported the law was selectively implemented.
The public prosecution, defendant, and complainant each have the right to appeal an acquittal, conviction, or sentence in a criminal court ruling. Appeals are heard by the criminal committee, consisting of a presiding judge and a minimum of four other judges, within the Federal Court of Cassation in Baghdad. The criminal committee automatically reviews all cases with a minimum sentence of 25 years, life imprisonment, or death. The committee may uphold a decision or overrule it and return the case to the trial court for a retrial or for additional judicial investigation.
On February 16, the Erbil Criminal Court found the so-called Badinan Five guilty of “undermining national security” and sentenced them to six years in prison. Erbil’s appellate court upheld the original ruling on May 4. UNAMI and OHCHR observed the two-day trial and reported serious concerns that basic international fair trial standards were not respected during the hearing. All five defendants alleged in court that Asayish extracted their confessions under torture, but the trial judge dismissed these allegations without further examination. Defense counsel also told the court it was not given adequate time to prepare for trial and had no opportunity to access and review key evidence against the defendants provided by secret informers or to challenge that evidence through cross-examination or by presenting rebuttal evidence.
NGO staff, independent activists, and Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament (IKP) opposition members of parliament called the court’s September and October trial postponements of another 11 Badinan detainees unnecessary and accused the KRG of purposely delaying to fabricate evidence and tamp down public support for the detainees. In their December 22 report, UNAMI and OHCHR called the cases “emblematic” of the KRG criminal justice system and described “a consistent lack of respect for the legal conditions and procedural safeguards necessary to guarantee fair judicial proceedings before an independent and impartial tribunal,” including the use of secret witnesses, and allegations of torture for at least eight of the defendants, which were “dismissed without further examination.” On October 19 and 21, six Badinan detainees were sentenced to a year in prison, on lesser charges of involvement in illegal gatherings and criminal conspiracy (as opposed to the more serious original charges of espionage and “undermining national security”), while a seventh was acquitted. On November 8, the Erbil criminal court convicted the remaining four of undermining the security of the IKR and espionage (the same charges as the Badinan Five faced, although these four defendants received less than the law’s five-year minimum sentencing guideline). The defendants filed an appeal December 6. According to one NGO, as of December at least another 34 Badinan-related activists remained in custody with no scheduled court date and many without formal charges.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
The government did not consider any incarcerated persons to be political prisoners and argued they had violated criminal statutes. It was difficult to assess these claims due to lack of government transparency, prevalence of corruption in arrest procedures, slow case processing, and extremely limited access to detainees, especially those held in counterterrorism, intelligence, and military facilities. Political opponents of the government alleged the government imprisoned individuals for political activities or beliefs under the pretense of criminal charges ranging from corruption to terrorism and murder. Prime Minister al-Kadhimi ordered the immediate release of all detained protesters in May 2020, and the Higher Judicial Council ordered courts to comply.
Amnesty: The law includes amnesty for corruption crimes under the condition that the stolen money be returned. NGOs and politicians complained that authorities implemented the law selectively and in a manner that did not comply with the intended goal of providing relief for those imprisoned under false charges or for sectarian reasons.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
Individuals and organizations may seek civil remedies for, or cessation of, human rights abuses through domestic courts. Administrative remedies also exist. The government did not effectively implement civil or administrative remedies for human rights abuses due in part to the overwhelming security focus of the executive branch on maintenance of law and order, coupled with an understaffed judiciary.
Unlike federal law, KRG law provides for compensation to persons subject to unlawful arrest or detention and survivors of the Anfal chemical weapons campaign waged by the former regime of Saddam Hussein; the KRG Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs handles such cases. After reviewing and removing duplicate cases in June, the ministry approved an additional 1,300 cases (many historical) that received compensation consisting of a piece of land, 10 years’ salary, and college tuition for one family member, although the government could not always pay compensation due to budget constraints.
Individuals in the IKR and the rest of the country who were imprisoned for political reasons under the Saddam regime received a pension as compensation from the government. While KRG political prisoners’ monthly pensions were approximately 500,000 dinars ($342) plus 50,000 dinars ($34) for each year of being imprisoned, the central government paid other Iraqis a minimum of 1.2 million dinars ($822).
In March parliament passed the Yezidi Survivors’ Law which established a new Survivors’ Directorate at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. The Survivors’ Directorate is mandated to provide psychosocial support and restitution to victims of ISIS. As of October 1, the government had neither fully funded nor issued implementing regulations for the directorate.
Property Seizure and Restitution
The constitution and law prohibit the expropriation of property, except for the public benefit and in return for just compensation. In previous years government forces and PMF units forced suspected ISIS members, in addition to members of religious and ethnic minority groups, from their homes and confiscated property without restitution. Although home and property confiscations continued to decline during the year, many of those who confiscated the homes still occupied them or claimed ownership to the property. This factor, among other concerns, contributed to low rates of return for IDPs to these areas.
In June the Iraqi Commission of Integrity (COI) announced that the Integrity Investigation Court in Ninewa ordered the freezing of 844 state land assets that were illegally seized or allocated to various parties until an investigation of their status was completed. There was no information available on the status of the investigation. In May the mayor of Mosul City, Zuhair al-Araji, asked the Police Directorate in Mosul to take legal action against four members of Asa’ib A’hla al-Haq (AAH) who worked in the AAH Economic Office in Mosul, on charges of bulldozing and seizing a plot of land for the purpose of selling it; however, the Police Directorate took no action.
f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The constitution and law prohibit such actions, but there were numerous reports that the government failed to respect these prohibitions. Government forces often entered homes without judicial or other appropriate authorization.
Authorities reportedly detained spouses and other family members of fugitives – mostly Sunni Arabs wanted on terrorism charges – to compel the fugitives to surrender.
g. Conflict-related Abuses
Killings: Iraq Body Count, an independent NGO that records civilian deaths in the country, reported 417 civilians killed during the year due to internal conflict, a drop from 848 civilian deaths reported in 2020. An IHCHR commissioner attributed the drop in deaths to reduced protest activity.
Despite its territorial defeat in 2017, ISIS remained a major perpetrator of abuses and atrocities. The remaining fighters operated out of sleeper cells and strike teams that carried out sniper attacks, ambushes, kidnappings, and killings against security forces and community leaders. These abuses were particularly evident in Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Kirkuk, Ninewa, and Salah al-Din Provinces. On March 13, ISIS claimed responsibility for killing seven members of a single family in the Albu Dor region south of Tikrit in Salah al-Din Province.
Abductions: There were frequent reports of enforced disappearances by or on behalf of government forces, including the ISF and PMF, as well as non-PMF militias and criminal groups.
A 2020 UNAMI report released and shared with government officials on enforced disappearances in Anbar Province called for independent and effective investigations to establish the fate of approximately 1,000 civilian men and boys who disappeared during military operations against ISIS in Anbar during 2015-16. As of October the IHCHR had not received any information regarding these individuals, and the government had not added the names to their databases of known missing persons.
On August 1, the KRG Office for Rescuing Kidnapped Yezidis stated that 2,763 (1,293 women and 1,470 men) of the 6,417 Yezidis kidnapped by ISIS in 2014 remained missing.
Members of other minority populations were also victims of human rights abuses committed by ISIS forces. In February Ali Hussein of the Iraqi Turkmen Front reported a revised estimate of kidnapped Turkmen at 1,300 since 2014. Among the abductees, 470 were women, 130 children, and 700 men.
Physical Abuse, Punishment, and Torture: Reports from international human rights groups stated that government forces, including Federal Police, NSS, PMF, and Asayish, abused prisoners and detainees, particularly Sunni Arabs. In May, Afad Center for Human Rights reported that the detainees who were most frequently subjected to torture were Sunnis from the northern and western provinces, Baghdad belt region, and other areas that were subjected to ISIS occupation.
Child Soldiers: There was one verified report of recruitment and use of children by the Popular Mobilization Forces. The government and Shia religious leaders expressly prohibited children younger than 18 from serving in combat.
In previous years ISIS was reported to have recruited and used children in combat and support functions. Due in part to ISIS’ territorial defeat, little information was available on its use of children in the country during the year.
In August the United Nations Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict published its annual report on children and armed conflict, in which the UN Secretary General commended the government for its continuing discussion with the United Nations on developing an action plan to prevent the recruitment and use of children by the Popular Mobilization Forces; however, it noted that one new case of recruitment and use of a child soldier by the Popular Mobilization Forces was verified.
See also the Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.
Other Conflict-related Abuse: Conflict disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons throughout the country, particularly in Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, Salah al-Din, and Ninewa Provinces.
Government forces, including the ISF and PMF, established or maintained roadblocks that reportedly impeded the flow of humanitarian assistance to communities in need, particularly in disputed territories such as the Ninewa Plain and Sinjar in Ninewa Province. ISIS continued to attack religious observances, including funerals, and civilian electricity and other infrastructure. In 2017 the UN Security Council, in cooperation with the government, established the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) to support domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence, to the highest possible standards, of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed by ISIS.
In May Special Adviser Karim Khan presented to the UN Security Council that UNITAD had established “clear and convincing evidence” that the crimes committed by ISIS against the Yezidis constituted genocide. UNITAD reported that ISIS was “responsible for acts of extermination, murder, rape, torture, enslavement, persecution, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Yezidis.” In September the UN Security Council extended UNITAD’s mandate for another year. In October government authorities, in cooperation with UNITAD, completed the excavation of a mass grave site in Bir Mantiqa al-Halwat, Anbar Province, where ISIS atrocities had reportedly occurred in 2014. The general director of mass graves at the IKR Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs confirmed in a public statement on December 8 that there were 90 mass graves in the Sinjar region. UNITAD-supported exhumation and identification activities continued throughout the year.
Militias and local authorities in some areas, including Ninewa and Diyala Provinces, tried to exercise control over NGO activities and staff recruitment. During August two humanitarian organizations reported to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that security actors requested names and personnel details of employees as a condition for continuing humanitarian operations.
There were reports of physical harm to humanitarian staff operating in the country. Three staff of an international NGO were reportedly injured during Turkish military operations in and around Sinjar, Ninewa Province in August. Press outlets reported that these Turkish operations included airstrikes on what may have been a makeshift medical facility, killing four medical staff in addition to members of a militia affiliated with both the PKK and elements of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces.
Netherlands
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person
a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
There were no reports the governments or their agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and law prohibit such practices and there were no reports that government officials employed them.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
There were no reports regarding prison or detention center conditions in the Netherlands that raised human rights concerns. According to human rights organizations, prison conditions in some detention centers on Sint Maarten, Aruba, and Curacao did not meet minimum international standards.
Physical Conditions: In the Netherlands there were no major concerns in prisons and detention centers regarding physical conditions or inmate abuse. In a 2015 report on its visit to the Dutch Caribbean, the most recent report available, the Council of Europe’s Committee of the Prevention of Torture (CPT) noted poor physical conditions in Curacao and Aruba, in some cases serious enough to be considered inhuman and degrading treatment, and reports of inmate mistreatment and interprisoner violence in Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten. Amnesty International reported during the year that migrants in detention on Curacao were subjected to harsh conditions, including overcrowding and poor food, as well as psychological and physical abuse from guards and had limited contact with the outside world.
On Aruba and Curacao, repatriation flights occurred more often to return undocumented Venezuelans who did not request asylum to Venezuela, although the schedule was not regular, and some undocumented Venezuelans remained in immigration detention longer than expected.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported that Venezuelan refugees were held in detention in Curacao for more than six months, which is a violation of local immigration policy. An August 2020 report by the independent body Council for Law Enforcement stated that at the time of their investigation, there was a lack of staff at the prison and the living conditions at the migration detention center were poor.
Administration: Agencies that make up the national preventive mechanism addressing allegations of mistreatment throughout the entire kingdom conducted investigations into credible allegations.
Independent Monitoring: The kingdom’s governments permitted monitoring by independent governmental and nongovernmental observers such as human rights groups, media, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as by international bodies such as the CPT, the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, and the UN Working Group for People of African Descent.
Improvements: In response to the 2015 CPT report, Sint Maarten, Aruba, and Curacao added staff, daytime activities, rehabilitation programs, and electronic surveillance, and prompted by overcrowding due to the Venezuelan migration crisis, Dutch government-funded improvements of the Curacao detention center and prison continued during the year, based on CPT standards.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law throughout the kingdom prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention and provides for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her arrest or detention in court. The governments generally observed these requirements.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
A prosecutor or senior police officer must order the arrest of any person unless the person is apprehended at the site of an alleged crime. Arrested persons have the right to appear, usually within a day, before a judge, and authorities generally respected this right. Authorities informed detainees promptly of charges against them. The kingdom’s laws also allow persons to be detained on a court order pending investigation.
In terrorism-related cases in the Netherlands, the examining magistrate may initially order detention for 14 days on the lesser charge of “reasonable suspicion” rather than the “serious suspicion” required for other crimes.
There is no bail system. Detainees can request to be released claiming there are no grounds to detain them. Authorities frequently grant such requests. In all parts of the kingdom, the law provides suspects the right to consult an attorney. The Netherlands’ law grants all criminal suspects the right to have their lawyers present at police interrogation. In Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten, a criminal suspect is only entitled to consult his or her lawyer prior to the first interview on the substance of the case. Immigration detainees in Curacao do not always have access to legal counsel, nor do they have consistent visitation rights. On Curacao, Venezuelans faced barriers to accessing legal assistance since they must know how to call upon assistance themselves, a significant challenge as they were often uninformed regarding Curacaoan laws and regulations and since materials provided were only in Dutch. Additionally, attorney’s fees must be paid by the detainee, his or her family, or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In the Netherlands and Curacao, in the case of a minor, the lawyer can be present during interviews but cannot actively participate. In 2020 the Council on Law Enforcement revealed that the 30-day maximum detention rule for migrant foreign nationals was regularly exceeded on Curacao, and that foreign nationals in detention were not informed of their rights.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
In all parts of the kingdom, the law provides for an independent judiciary, and the governments generally respected judicial independence and impartiality.
Trial Procedures
The law provides for the right to a fair and public trial throughout the kingdom, and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right.
Defendants enjoy the right to a presumption of innocence and the right to be informed promptly of the charges. Trials must be fair and take place without undue delay in the presence of the accused. The law provides for prompt access of defendants to attorneys of their choice, including at public expense if the defendant is indigent, although this was not the case for deportation hearings in Curacao. Defendants generally have adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense. If required, the court provides interpreters free of charge throughout the judicial process. The defendant is not present when the examining magistrate examines witnesses, but an attorney for the accused has the right to question them.
In most instances defendants and their attorneys may present witnesses and evidence for the defense. The judge has the discretion to decide which witnesses and evidence are relevant to the case; if the defendant disagrees with the judge’s decision, there is a procedure to address the grievance. In certain cases involving national security, the defense has the right to submit written questions to witnesses whose identities are kept confidential. Defendants may not be compelled to testify or confess guilt and have the right to appeal.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees anywhere in the kingdom.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
Individuals throughout the kingdom may bring lawsuits for damages for human rights abuses in the regular court system or specific appeal boards. If all domestic means of redress are exhausted, individuals may appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Citizens of Sint Maarten and Curacao may also seek redress from the government through the Office of the Ombudsperson.
Property Seizure and Restitution
The Netherlands government has laws or mechanisms in place, and NGOs and advocacy groups reported that the government has made significant progress on resolution of Holocaust-era claims, including for foreign citizens. During the year the government revised its policies on art restitution. The new policy is comprehensive and includes, among other steps: ending the former “balancing test,” which gave weight to the existing owners in contravention of the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art; establishing a help desk for survivors and heirs; and providing additional money for provenance research and opening more of the archives to the public. The World Jewish Restitution Organization noted the new policy, stating that it returned “…the Netherlands to its role as a leading country in regard to research on and restitution of artworks and other cultural property that was plundered from the Jews of the Netherlands during the Holocaust.” The government sought to meet the goals of the Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets and Related Issues. A legal process exists for claimants to request the return of property looted during the Holocaust, although some advocates said that bureaucratic procedures and poor record keeping were barriers to restitution efforts. There were no active restitution cases on Curacao, Aruba, or Sint Maarten.
On June 3, the Dutch railway (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) published its final report on the restitution program it managed for victims of its transport of more than 100,000 Jews, Roma, Sinti, and others to transit camps during World War II. The program, which ran from 2019 to 2020, approved 5,489 applications out of 7,791 total and awarded approximately 43.9 million euros ($50.5 million) to eligible recipients, most of whom were the descendants of victims. The report also announced the start of a historical research project into the railway’s role during the Second World War and noted its five-million-euro ($5.75 million) donation to four local Holocaust memorial centers in 2020 as a “collective expression of recognition” for the railway’s victims.
The 2020 Department of State Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act report to Congress can be found on the Department’s website: https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/.
f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The law throughout the kingdom prohibits such actions but some human rights organizations criticized police capturing of facial photographs and storing citizens’ privacy-sensitive data.
Dutch police used photos of drivers’ faces automatically taken by automated number plate recognition (ANPR) license plate cameras for investigative purposes. The use of facial photos, however, is not permitted under the existing legal framework, under which police are only allowed to record license plates. Moreover, the data must be destroyed after 28 days, and recognizable faces must be blurred to prevent breaches of privacy. The head of the department responsible for the ANPR cameras of the National Police stated in August that he would like to see the law expanded so that in cases of serious crimes such as armed robbery, murder, or manslaughter, faces captured by ANPR cameras could be made recognizable and used in investigations. At year’s end, the Scientific Research and Documentation Center of the Ministry of Justice and Security was evaluating the relevant law to determine whether the use of the ANPR in this fashion could continue.
The Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism’s (NCTV) legal department confirmed in September that the government body had been unlawfully collecting, storing, and analyzing privacy-sensitive data about citizens for years, according to media outlet NRC, citing NCTV internal documents. During a parliamentary debate in June, Minister of Justice and Security Ferdinand Grapperhaus denied that NCTV acted unlawfully but nevertheless in July submitted a proposal for a draft law to provide a legal basis for the NCTV to process personal data. Parliament had yet to vote on the legislation by year’s end.
In December police announced a halt to the collection of personal data from phones and laptops of asylum seekers and the erasure of such data from police systems. The collection program, named “Athens,” began in 2016 over concerns about possible terrorists or criminals within the asylum seeker population, and cross-referenced the collected data with national databases to identify signs of human trafficking, smuggling, and terrorist threats. The practice, however, yielded no new criminal investigations, according to media. Authorities asserted this practice had been allowable under data regulations before the implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulations in 2018. The Council of State, the highest court in the Netherlands, ruled in June there should be legal safeguards that “limit” the collection, use, and retention of data copied from asylum seekers’ phones and advocated for clearer definitions on for what purpose data could be stored and the length of storage.
Portugal
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person
a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
There were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings.
The Inspectorate General of Internal Administration (IGAI) in the Ministry of Internal Administration operates independently, investigates deaths caused by security forces, and evaluates whether they occurred in the line of duty or were otherwise justifiable.
In response to the March 2020 killing of Ukrainian traveler Igor Homaniuk while in the custody of the country’s immigration authority, the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), the government dismantled the SEF and replaced it with the Foreigners and Asylum Service (SEA). SEF operations and functions were reassigned to four different government agencies. The SEF retained only its document and database management functions. On May 10, a Lisbon court convicted three SEF border officers of inflicting serious bodily harm that led to Homaniuk’s death. Two of the officers were sentenced to nine years in prison, and one was sentenced to seven years in prison. The court found that the officers had handcuffed, beaten, and left Homaniuk to asphyxiate on the floor of an airport detention center.
b. Disappearance
There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
While the constitution and law prohibit such practices, there were credible reports of excessive use of force by police and of mistreatment and other forms of abuse of prisoners by prison guards. On September 15, Danijoy Pontes, a 23-year-old of Sao Tome e Principe origin, died in the Lisbon Prison Establishment. Black, antiracist, immigrant, and human rights organizations, as well as Pontes’ family and friends, raised concerns about the circumstances that led to his death. Authorities stated at the time that he had died in his sleep, but the family suspected that Pontes was given excessive medication by prison guards and called for the reopening of the investigation. The Attorney General’s Office confirmed on November 23 that the Public Prosecutor’s Office had reopened the investigation. In a report published in November 2020 on its ad hoc visit to the country in 2019, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) noted that it received a considerable number of credible allegations of mistreatment by police officers. The alleged mistreatment consisted primarily of slaps, punches, and kicks to the body and head as well as beatings with batons and took place at the time of apprehension as well as during time spent in a police station. The CPT concluded that such mistreatment was not infrequent and was not the result of a few rogue officers. The CPT noted that persons of African descent, both Portuguese citizens and foreign nationals, appeared to be at greater risk of being mistreated.
In 2020 the IGAI received 1,073 reports of mistreatment and abuse by police and prison guards, the highest number since 2012. Complaints of physical abuse consisted primarily of slaps, punches, and kicks to the body and head as well as beatings with batons. The complaints were mainly against the Public Security Police (530) and the Republican National Guard (335). The IGAI investigated each complaint. In 2020 the government initiated 58 investigations of members of the security forces. Punishment ranged from letters of reprimand, temporary suspension from duty, mandatory retirement with pension cuts, discharge from duty, and prison sentences.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
There were some reports regarding prison or detention center conditions that raised human rights concerns.
Physical Conditions: Several of the country’s prisons were overcrowded. Other reported problems included inadequate facilities, poor health conditions, and violence among inmates.
Authorities occasionally held juveniles in adult facilities, despite the existence of a youth prison in Leiria. The prison system held pretrial detainees with convicted criminals.
The November 2020 CPT report noted that certain prisons continued to operate at 120 percent or higher of their official capacity. The CPT found both decent and poor living areas in the prisons it visited. For example, induction cells in Wing D at the Lisbon Prison were particularly dilapidated and dirty, as were the induction dormitory and dormitory for prisoners sentenced or accused of sex offenses at Caxias Prison. Conditions at Caxias Prison were exacerbated by overcrowding (14 prisoners in 335 square feet of space) and confinement of prisoners to dormitories for 22 hours a day. A similar situation was noted at Setubal Prison. The CPT report stated, “Such conditions could be considered as amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment.” The CPT noted that some facilities lacked sufficient lighting, heating, and sanitation.
Administration: Authorities investigated allegations of abuses and inhuman conditions and documented the results in a publicly accessible manner. The November 2020 CPT report noted that no disciplinary actions against law enforcement personnel can be imposed until the conclusion of criminal proceedings against them, which can often stretch out over many years.
Independent Monitoring: The government permitted visits by independent human rights observers that included the CPT, the IGAI, university researchers, and news media. Local human rights and media groups were fully independent bodies and had unrestricted access to the prisons.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The constitution and federal law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention and provide for the right of any person to challenge in court the lawfulness of their detention. The government generally observed these requirements.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
Individuals are normally arrested only on a judicial warrant, but law enforcement officials and citizens may make warrantless arrests when there is probable cause that a crime has just been or is being committed, or that the person to be arrested is an escaped convict or suspect.
Authorities must bring the suspect before an investigating judge within 48 hours of arrest. By law the investigating judge determines whether an arrested person should be detained, released on bail, or released outright. Investigative detention for most crimes is limited to four months. If authorities do not file a formal charge within that period, they must release the detainee. In cases of serious crimes such as murder, armed robbery, terrorism, and violent or organized crime, and crimes involving more than one suspect, the investigating judge may decide to hold a suspect in detention while the investigation is underway for up to 18 months, and up to three years in extraordinary circumstances.
Bail exists, but authorities generally do not release detainees on their own recognizance. Depending on the severity of the crime, a detainee’s release may be subject to various legal conditions.
Detainees have the right to legal counsel of their choice from the time of arrest. The CPT’s November 2020 report noted that most persons the CPT interviewed stated that they only met an ex officio lawyer at the court hearing before a judge. If detained persons cannot afford a private lawyer, the government appoints one and assumes legal costs.
Pretrial Detention: Lengthy pretrial detention remained a problem, but rarely equaled or exceeded the maximum sentence for the alleged crime. As of September 15, according to the Directorate General of Prison Services, 18 percent of the prison population was in pretrial detention, a decrease of 1.5 percent than the previous year. Most pretrial detainees were incarcerated six months to a year. Observers, including media, business corporations, and legal observers, estimated the backlog of cases awaiting trial to be at least one year. The length of pretrial detention was usually due to lengthy investigations and legal procedures, judicial inefficiency, or staff shortages. Time in pretrial detention applies toward a convicted detainee’s prison sentence. A detainee found not guilty has the right to compensation for this time.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence and impartiality.
Trial Procedures
The constitution provides for the right to a fair and public trial, and an independent judiciary generally enforced this right. The law presumes that all defendants are innocent and provides the right to be informed promptly of the charges, with free interpretation when necessary from the moment charged through all appeals. Defendants have the right to a fair, timely, and public trial. Authorities must bring a suspect in investigative detention to trial within 14 months of a formal charge. If a suspect is not in detention, the law specifies no deadline for going to trial. When the crime is punishable by a prison sentence of eight years or longer, either the public prosecutor or the defendant may request a jury trial.
Defendants have the right to be present at their trials and to consult with an attorney of their choice or provided by the government if necessary, from the time of arrest. Defendants have adequate time and facilities to prepare their defense. They may confront and question witnesses against them and present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf. Defendants cannot be compelled to testify or confess guilt. Those convicted have the right of appeal.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
There were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
Citizens, foreign residents, and organizations have access to a court to bring lawsuits seeking damages for, or cessation of, a human rights violation, and they may appeal adverse domestic decisions to regional human rights bodies, such as the European Court of Human Rights.
Property Seizure and Restitution
Holocaust-era restitution was not a significant issue. The government has laws and mechanisms in place and is a signatory of the Terezin Declaration of 2009 and the Guidelines and Best Practices of 2010. The 1999 report commissioned by the government and chaired by the country’s former president and prime minister Mario Soares, at the time a member of the European Parliament, found there was “no basis for additional restitution” following the payment made by the country in 1960 for gold transactions carried out between Portuguese and German authorities between 1936 and 1945. NGOs and advocacy groups, including the local Jewish community, reported no significant outstanding Holocaust-era claims, including for foreign citizens.
The Department of State’s Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act report to Congress, released publicly in July 2020, can be found on the Department’s website: www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/.
f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
The constitution and laws prohibit such actions; there was one report that municipal-level authorities failed to respect these prohibitions.
In June press outlets reported that Lisbon municipal authorities disclosed to Russian government officials the personal information of three Russian dissidents who had sought a permit to protest outside the Russian embassy in January. Lisbon officials apologized after significant public outcry and stated they would end this practice.
Turkey
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person
a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings
There were credible allegations that the government contributed to civilian deaths in connection with its fight against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) organization in the southeast although civilian deaths continued to decline in recent years (see section 1.g.). The PKK continued to target civilians in its attacks; the government continued to work to block such attacks. The law authorizes the Ombudsman Institution, the National Human Rights and Equality Institution, prosecutors’ offices, criminal courts, and parliament’s Human Rights Commission to investigate reports of security force killings, torture, or mistreatment, excessive use of force, and other abuses. Civil courts, however, remained the main recourse to prevent impunity.
According to the International Crisis Group, from January 1 to November 15, a total of 25 civilians, 51 security force members, and 268 PKK militants were killed in the country and surrounding region in PKK-related clashes. Human rights groups stated the government took insufficient measures to protect civilian lives in its fight with the PKK.
The PKK continued its campaign of attacks on government security forces, resulting in civilian deaths. PKK attacks focused particularly on southeastern provinces. In October the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources reported that a PKK attack killed two electricity workers in Bingol Province after the group detonated a remote-controlled explosive while a vehicle carrying the workers passed.
There were credible reports that the country’s military operations outside its borders led to the deaths of civilians (see section 1.g.). In August press outlets reported that Turkish airstrikes on what may have been a makeshift medical facility in the Sinjar District of Iraq killed four medical staff in addition to members of a militia affiliated with both the PKK and elements of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces.
According to the Baran Tursun Foundation, an organization that monitors police brutality, police killed 404 individuals for disobeying stop warnings between 2007 and 2020. According to the report, 92 were children. Police killed six individuals in 2020 according to the report. In June suspect Birol Yildirim died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody in the Esenyurt district in Istanbul. Authorities subsequently arrested 12 police officers on charges of beating Yildirim to death. The case against the officers continued at year’s end.
By law National Intelligence Organization (MIT) members are immune from prosecution as are security officials involved in fighting terror, making it harder for prosecutors to investigate extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses by requiring that they obtain permission from both military and civilian leadership prior to pursuing prosecution.
b. Disappearance
Domestic and international human rights groups reported instances of disappearances that they alleged were politically motivated.
In February human rights groups reported that Huseyin Galip Kucukozyigit, a former legal advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office who was dismissed after the 2016 coup attempt, may have been subjected to enforced disappearance. Kucukozyigit last contacted his family in December 2020; his relatives believed he was abducted. Authorities initially denied Kucukozyigit was in official custody. In September, Kucukozyigit’s daughter announced on social media that she received a telephone call from him and that he was in Sincan Prison in Ankara.
Human rights organizations appealed for authorities to investigate the disappearance of Yusuf Bilge Tunc, one of seven men reportedly “disappeared” by the government in 2019. Six of the seven surfaced in 2019 in police custody on terrorism charges, but Tunc’s whereabouts remained unknown.
The government declined to provide information on efforts to prevent, investigate, and punish such acts.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The constitution and law prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, but domestic and international rights groups reported that some police officers, prison authorities, and military and intelligence units employed these practices. Domestic human rights organizations, bar associations, political opposition figures, international human rights groups, and others reported that government agents engaged in threats, mistreatment, and possible torture of some persons while in custody. Human rights groups asserted that individuals with alleged affiliation with the PKK or the Gulen movement were more likely to be subjected to mistreatment, abuse, or possible torture.
Reports from human rights groups indicated that police abused detainees outside police station premises and that mistreatment and alleged torture was more prevalent in some police facilities in parts of the southeast. A consortium of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), told the press in July “police violence has become a part of daily life” and observed that authorities increasingly intervened in peaceful protests and demonstrations. In the first 11 months of the year, the HRFT reported receiving complaints from 531 individuals alleging they were subjected to torture and other forms of mistreatment while in custody or at extracustodial locations. In the same period, the Human Rights Association of Turkey (HRA) reported, at least 415 individuals applied to the NGO alleging torture or other forms of mistreatment. The HRA reported that intimidation and shaming of detainees by police were common and that victims hesitated to report police abuse due to fear of reprisal.
In early January police violently dispersed protests over President Erdogan’s January 1 appointment of rector Melih Bulu at Bogazici University in Istanbul, using water cannons and tear gas. Police subsequently raided houses and detained 45 students in the protests. Amnesty International reported that the students alleged torture and mistreatment at the time of detention and while in custody. According to student reports, police pushed and hit them during detention. At least eight students reported forced strip searches, and two students from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) community reported that police threatened them with rape with a truncheon and verbally abused them regarding their sexual orientation or gender identity. Amnesty stated that at least 15 students reported mistreatment during medical examinations at a hospital following detention.
Protests continued throughout the year, mainly in Istanbul. Human Rights Watch estimated that police detained more than 700 protesters since January in at least 38 cities. Human rights groups reported police frequently used excessive force during detentions, injuring protesters. For example, in February, Human Rights Watch reported police kicking protesters who were not resisting arrest. Videos showed protesters’ significant injuries, such as broken teeth and lacerations. In April human rights groups reported that police grabbed some students by the throat and threw them to the ground (see additional information in section 2.a., Academic Freedom and Cultural Events).
The government asserted it followed a “zero tolerance” policy for torture and has abolished statute of limitations for cases of torture. In its World Report 2021, Human Rights Watch stated, “A rise in allegations of torture, mistreatment and cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment in police custody and prison over the past four years has set back Turkey’s earlier progress in this area. Those targeted included persons accused of political and common crimes. Prosecutors did not conduct meaningful investigations into such allegations and there is a pervasive culture of impunity for members of the security forces and public officials implicated.” According to Ministry of Justice statistics from 2020, the government opened 2,199 investigations into allegations of torture and mistreatment. Of those, 917 resulted in no action being taken by prosecutors, 816 resulted in criminal cases, and 466 in other decisions. The government did not release data on its investigations into alleged torture.
NGOs and opposition politicians reported that prison administrators used strip searches punitively both against prisoners and visitors, particularly in cases where the prisoner was convicted on terrorism charges. The HRA documented 174 allegations of enforced strip searches in 2020. In a June report, the HRA’s Batman branch in the southeastern part of the country noted that prisoners reported strip searches during prison transfers, often executed with force that HRA alleged amounted to battery.
In February the family of the jailed former Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) mayor of Hakkari, Dilek Hatipoglu, alleged that security guards beat her after she refused to undress for a strip search. Press outlets reported that Hatipoglu had a black eye at a court hearing that she attended that month. In 2016 a court sentenced Hatipoglu to 16 years and three months in prison on terrorism charges.
Some military conscripts reportedly endured severe hazing, physical abuse, and torture that sometimes resulted in death or suicide. Human rights groups reported suspicious deaths in the military, particularly among conscripts of minority Alevi and Kurdish backgrounds. The government did not systematically investigate such incidents or release data on them. The HRA and HRFT reported at least 13 deaths of soldiers performing compulsory military service were the result of accidents or occurred under suspicious circumstances during the first 11 months of the year. In April an ethnically Romani soldier, Caner Sarmasik, committed suicide while on duty. A Romani NGO alleged Sarmasik’s commanders severely hazed him due to his Romani identity. Several opposition parliamentarians requested that the Ministry of Defense investigate the death. The government did not release information on its efforts to address abuse through disciplinary action and training.
Prison and Detention Center Conditions
Prisons generally met standards for physical conditions (i.e., infrastructure and basic equipment), but significant problems with overcrowding resulted in conditions in many prisons that the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) found could be considered inhuman and degrading in its 2017 and 2019 visits. While detention facilities were generally in a good state of repair and well ventilated, many facilities had structural deficiencies that made them unsuitable for detention lasting more than a few days.
Physical Conditions: Prison overcrowding remained a significant problem. According to the Ministry of Justice, as of March the country had 374 prisons with a capacity for 250,756 inmates and an estimated total inmate population of 283,481.
If separate prison facilities for minors were not available, minors were held in separate sections within separate male and female adult prisons. Children younger than six were allowed to stay with their incarcerated mothers. The NGO Civil Society in the Penal System estimated that as of August, 345 children were being held with their mothers. Pretrial detainees were held in the same facilities as convicted prisoners.
The government did not regularly release data on inmate deaths due to physical conditions or actions of staff members. In February the Ministry of Justice announced 50 prisoners had died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. The Ministry of Justice has not released updated figures on prisoner deaths due to COVID-19.
In December the HRA reported 28 deaths in prison related to illness, violence, or other causes.
Human rights organizations and CPT reports asserted that prisoners frequently lacked adequate access to potable water, proper heating, ventilation, lighting, food, and health services. Human rights organizations also noted that prison overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions exacerbated health risks from the COVID-19 pandemic. NGOs reported that prisoners feared reporting health problems or seeking medical care, since a positive COVID-19 result would lead to a two-week quarantine in solitary confinement. The NGO Civil Society in the Penal System reported prison facilities did not allow for sufficient social distancing due to overcrowding and that prison administrators did not provide regular cleaning and disinfection services. Prisons also did not provide disinfectant, gloves, or masks to prisoners, but instead sold them at commissaries. According to a March survey of prisoners by the NGO Media and Law Studies Association conducted in five facilities, 56 percent of respondents reported not having sufficient hygienic supplies during the pandemic.
According to Ministry of Justice prison and correctional facilities statistics, as of September there were seven medical doctors, 154 dentists, 81 nurses, 839 psychologists, and 444 other health workers serving the prison population. Human rights associations expressed serious concern regarding the inadequate provision of health care to prisoners, particularly the insufficient number of prison doctors. NGOs reported that prison wardens rather than health-care officials often decided whether to allow a prisoner’s transfer to a hospital.
Reports by human rights organizations suggested that some doctors refused to issue medical reports alleging torture due to fear of reprisal. As a result, victims were often unable to get medical documentation of their abuse.
Chief prosecutors have discretion, particularly under the wide-ranging counterterrorism law, to keep prisoners they deem dangerous to public security in pretrial detention, regardless of medical reports documenting serious illness.
Administration: Authorities at times investigated credible allegations of abuse and inhuman or degrading conditions but generally did not document the results of such investigations in a publicly accessible manner or disclose publicly whether actions were taken to hold perpetrators accountable. Some human rights activists and lawyers reported that prisoners and detainees were sometimes arbitrarily denied access to family members and lawyers.
Independent Monitoring: The government allowed prison visits by some observers, including parliamentarians. The Ministry of Interior reported that under the law, prisons were to be monitored by domestic government entities including the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey and the Parliamentary Commission for Investigating Human Rights. International monitors included the CPT, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
The government did not allow NGOs to monitor prisons. NGOs such as the HRA and Civil Society in the Penal System published periodic reports on prison conditions based on information provided by parliamentarians, correspondence with inmates, lawyers, inmates’ family members, and press reports.
d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention
The law prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention and provides for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of arrest or detention in court, but numerous credible reports indicated the government did not always observe these requirements.
Human rights groups noted that following the 2016 coup attempt, authorities continued to detain, arrest, and try hundreds of thousands of individuals with alleged ties to the Gulen movement or the PKK under terrorism-related charges, often with questionable evidentiary standards and without the full due process provided for under law (see sections 1.e. and 2.a.). Domestic and international legal and human rights groups criticized the judicial process in these cases, asserting that the judiciary lacked impartiality and that defendants were sometimes denied access to the evidence underlying the accusations against them.
On the fifth anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt in July, the Ministry of Interior announced that authorities had detained 312,121 and arrested 99,123 individuals since the coup attempt on grounds of alleged affiliation with the Gulen movement, which the government designated as a terrorist organization. Between July 2020 and July 2021, the government detained 29,331 and arrested 4,148 individuals for connections with the Gulen movement.
The courts in some cases applied the law unevenly, with legal critics and rights activists asserting court and prosecutor decisions were sometimes subject to executive interference.
Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees
The law requires that prosecutors issue warrants for arrests unless the suspect is detained while committing a crime. The period for arraignment may be extended for up to four days. Formal arrest is a measure, separate from detention, which means a suspect is to be held in jail until and unless released by a subsequent court order. For crimes that carry potential prison sentences of fewer than three years’ imprisonment, a judge may release the accused after arraignment upon receipt of an appropriate assurance, such as bail. For more serious crimes, the judge may either release the defendant on his or her own recognizance or hold the defendant in custody (arrest) prior to trial if there are specific facts indicating the suspect may flee, attempt to destroy evidence, or attempt to pressure or tamper with witnesses or victims. Judges often kept suspects in pretrial detention without articulating a clear justification for doing so.
While the law generally provides detainees the right to immediate access to an attorney, it allows prosecutors to deny such access for up to 24 hours. In criminal cases the law also requires that the government provide indigent detainees with a public attorney if they request one. In cases where the potential prison sentence for conviction is more than five years’ imprisonment or where the defendant is a child or a person with disabilities, a defense attorney is appointed, even absent a request from the defendant. Human rights observers noted that in most cases authorities provided an attorney if a defendant could not afford one.
Under antiterror legislation adopted in 2018, the government may detain without charge (or appearance before a judge) a suspect for 48 hours for “individual” offenses and 96 hours for “collective” offenses. These periods may be extended twice with the approval of a judge, amounting to six days for “individual” and 12 days for “collective” offenses. Human rights organizations raised concerns that police authority to hold individuals for up to 12 days without charge increased the risk of mistreatment and torture.
The law gives prosecutors the right to suspend lawyer-client privilege and to observe and record conversations between accused persons and their legal counsel. Bar associations reported that detainees occasionally had difficulty gaining immediate access to lawyers, both because government decrees restricted lawyers’ access to detainees and prisons – especially for those attorneys not appointed by the state – and because many lawyers were reluctant to defend individuals the government accused of ties to the 2016 coup attempt. Human rights organizations reported the 24-hour attorney access restriction was arbitrarily applied and that in terrorism-related cases, authorities often did not inform defense attorneys of the details of detentions within the first 24 hours, as stipulated by law. In such cases rights organizations and lawyers’ groups reported attorneys’ access to the case files for their clients was limited for weeks or months pending preparations of indictments, hampering their ability to defend their clients.
Some lawyers stated they were hesitant to take cases, particularly those of suspects accused of PKK or Gulen movement ties, for fear of government reprisal, including prosecution. Many lawyers defending persons accused of terrorism have faced criminal charges themselves. This practice disproportionately affected access to legal representation in the southeast, where accusations of affiliation with the PKK were frequent and the ratio of lawyers to citizens was low. Government intimidation of defense lawyers also at times involved nonterror cases.
According to human rights organizations, as of January authorities had prosecuted more than 1,600 lawyers, arrested 615, and sentenced 450 to lengthy prison terms on terrorism-related charges since the 2016 coup attempt. Of the arrested lawyers, 15 were active or former presidents of provincial bar associations. In May prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation into lawyer and former president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, Cihan Aydin, based on a 2019 statement of the bar association’s Women’s Rights Center calling for an end to the country’s military action in Syria and for diplomatic resolution of the conflict. The International Committee of Jurists and other human rights groups called for authorities to stop prosecution of Aydin.
Arbitrary Arrest: Although the law prohibits holding a suspect arbitrarily or secretly, there were numerous reports that the government did not observe these prohibitions. Human rights groups alleged that in areas under curfew or in “special security zones,” security forces detained citizens without official record, leaving detainees at greater risk of arbitrary abuse.
The deputy chair of the Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights, Sezgin Tanrikulu, a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), reported that in February individuals identifying themselves as police detained one member of the Workers’ Party of Turkey and two members of a student organization, forced them into a car, and interrogated them for hours.
In April a doctor at a state hospital in Osmaniye Province reported that he was arrested after refusing to treat a public prosecutor who did not have an appointment. The public prosecutor threatened the doctor, who later received a summons to the courthouse where he was detained and released on the same day. The doctor filed a complaint against the prosecutor. The Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for the district, decided not to pursue the complaint after reviewing the file.
Pretrial Detention: The maximum time an arrestee can be held pending trial with an indictment is seven years, including for crimes against the security of the state, national defense, constitutional order, state secrets and espionage, organized crime, and terrorism-related offenses. Pretrial detention during the investigation phase of a case (before an indictment) is limited to six months for cases that do not fall under the purview of the heavy criminal court, referred to by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) as the central criminal court, and one year for cases that fall under the heavy criminal court. The length of pretrial detention generally did not exceed the maximum sentence for the alleged crimes. For other major criminal offenses tried by high criminal courts, the maximum detention period remained two years with the possibility of three one-year extensions, for a total of five years. For terrorism-related cases, the maximum period of pretrial detention during the investigation phase is 18 months, with the possibility of a six-month extension.
Rule of law advocates noted that broad use of pretrial detention had become a form of summary punishment, particularly in cases that involved politically motivated terrorism charges.
The trial system does not provide for a speedy trial, and trial hearings were often months apart, despite provisions in the code of criminal procedure for continuous trial. Trials sometimes began years after indictment, and appeals could take years more to reach conclusion.
According to May statistics of the Ministry of Justice, 38,034 persons were held in pretrial detention, accounting for approximately 13 percent of the overall prison population.
Detainee’s Ability to Challenge Lawfulness of Detention before a Court: Detainees’ lawyers may appeal pretrial detention, although antiterror laws limited their ability to do so. The country’s judicial process allows a system of lateral appeals to criminal courts of peace for arrest, release, judicial control, and travel ban decisions that substitutes appeal to a higher court with appeal to a lateral court. Lawyers criticized the approach, which rendered ambiguous the authority of conflicting rulings by horizontally equal courts. In addition, since 2016 sentences of less than five years’ imprisonment issued by regional appellate courts were final and could not be appealed. Since 2019 the law provides for defendants in certain types of insult cases or speech-related cases to appeal to a higher court.
Detainees awaiting or undergoing trial have the right to a review in person with a lawyer before a judge every 90 days to determine if they should be released pending trial.
In cases of alleged human rights violations, detainees have the right to apply directly to the Constitutional Court for redress while their criminal cases are proceeding. Nevertheless, a backlog of cases at the Constitutional Court slowed proceedings, preventing expeditious redress.
Refugee-focused human rights groups alleged authorities prevented migrants placed in detention and return centers from communicating with the outside world, including their family members and lawyers, creating the potential for refoulement as migrants accept repatriation to avoid indefinite detention. COVID-19 preventative measures exacerbated these issues.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The law provides for an independent judiciary, but the judiciary remained subject to influence, particularly from the executive branch.
The executive branch exerts strong influence over the Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), the judicial body that assigns and reassigns judges and prosecutors to the country’s courts nationwide and is responsible for their discipline. Out of 13 total judges on the board, the president directly appoints six: the executive branch and parliament appoint 11 members (seven by parliament and four by the president) every four years; the other two members are the presidentially appointed justice minister and deputy justice minister. The ruling party controlled both the executive and the parliament when the existing members were appointed in 2017. Although the constitution provides tenure for judges, the HSK controls the careers of judges and prosecutors through appointments, transfers, promotions, expulsions, and reprimands. Broad leeway granted to prosecutors and judges challenges the requirement to remain impartial, and judges’ inclination to give precedence to the state’s interests contributed to inconsistent application of laws. Bar associations, lawyers, and scholars expressed concern regarding application procedures for prosecutors and judges described as highly subjective, which they warned opened the door to political litmus tests in the hiring process.
The judiciary faced several problems that limited judicial independence, including intimidation and reassignment of judges and allegations of interference by the executive branch. Directly following the 2016 coup attempt, the government suspended, detained, or fired nearly one-third of the judiciary, who were accused of affiliation with the Gulen movement. The government in the intervening years filled the vacancies and expanded hiring of new personnel, increasing the overall number of judges and prosecutors to above precoup levels, but the judiciary continued to experience the effects of the purges. A 2020 Reuters international news organization analysis of Ministry of Justice data showed that at least 45 percent of the country’s prosecutors and judges had three years or less of legal professional experience.
A June survey by the research company KONDA found that 64 percent of respondents did not trust the justice system. Among those of Kurdish background, 85 percent responded they did not trust the justice system.
Observers raised concerns that the outcome of some trials appeared predetermined or pointed to judicial interference. Human rights groups reported that in politically sensitive cases, judges frequently barred journalists and observers from the courtroom, interrupted defendants’ statements, did not allow them to speak, or handed down a decision without listening to the defendant’s statement.
Prominent philanthropist and businessman Osman Kavala remained in prison at year’s end despite European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rulings for his release and a 2020 acquittal decision. In December the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers voted to launch infringement proceedings in Turkey over the nonimplementation of the ECHR ruling in Kavala’s case. In August a court merged a case against him and eight others in connection with the 2013 Gezi Park protests with a case against the football fan club Besiktas Carsi. The Besiktas Carsi case involved 35 members of the club accused of various offenses related to the Gezi Park protests. In April the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest appeals court, overturned the 2015 acquittal of the 35 Besiktas Carsi members. Kavala was charged with espionage and “undermining the constitutional order” in connection with his alleged involvement in the 2016 coup attempt; “attempting to overthrow the government” in connection with the 2013 Gezi Park protests; and “membership in an armed group,” “resisting officers of the law,” “staging demonstrations in violation of the law,” and “possessing unlicensed weapons” in connection with the Besiktas Carsi case. Kavala’s lawyers argued that the philanthropist was not involved with Besiktas Carsi and was being prosecuted for political reasons.
The country has an inquisitorial criminal justice system. The system for educating and assigning judges and prosecutors fosters close connections between the two groups, which some legal experts claimed encouraged impropriety and unfairness in criminal cases.
There are no military courts, and military justice is reserved for disciplinary action, not criminal cases.
Lower courts at times ignored or significantly delayed implementation of decisions reached by the Constitutional Court. The government rarely implemented ECHR decisions, despite the country’s obligation to do so as a member of the Council of Europe. According to the NGO European Implementation Network, the country has not implemented 64 percent of ECHR decisions from the previous 10 years. For example, it has not implemented the ECHR decision on the illegality of pretrial detention of former Constitutional Court judge Alparslan Altan, who was arrested and convicted following the 2016 coup attempt. In February the Court of Cassation upheld Altan’s 11-year prison sentence, and he remained in prison at year’s end. On December 8, President Erdogan stated that Turkey does not recognize ECHR rulings in the Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtas’ cases (see Political Prisoners and Detainees), and he described the rulings as “null and void.” He also stated, “We do not recognize the decision of the European Union [sic] above the decision of our judiciary.”
Trial Procedures
The constitution provides for the right to a fair public trial, although bar associations and rights groups asserted that increasing executive interference with the judiciary and actions taken by the government through state of emergency provisions jeopardized this right.
The law provides defendants a presumption of innocence and the right to be present at their trials. In several high-profile cases, defendants appeared via video link from prison, rather than in person. Judges may restrict defense lawyers’ access to their clients’ court files for a specific catalogue of crimes (including crimes against state security, organized crime, and sexual assault against children) until the client is indicted.
A single judge or a panel of judges decides all cases. Courtroom proceedings were generally public except for cases involving minors as defendants. The state increasingly used a clause allowing closed courtrooms for hearings and trials related to security matters, such as those related to “crimes against the state.” Attendance of observers and witnesses in the courtroom was also limited during the year due to COVID-19 countermeasures. Court files, which contain indictments, case summaries, judgments, and other court pleadings, were closed except to the parties to a case, making it difficult for the public, including journalists and watchdog groups, to obtain information on the progress or results of a case. In some politically sensitive cases, judges restricted access to Turkish lawyers only, limiting the ability of domestic or international groups to observe some trials.
Defendants have the right to be present at trial and to consult an attorney of their choice in a timely manner, although legal advocates have asserted the government coerced defendants to choose government-appointed lawyers. Observers and human rights groups noted that in some high-profile cases, these rights were not afforded to defendants. Individuals from the southeast were increasingly held in prisons or detention centers far from the location of the alleged crime and appeared at their hearing via video link systems. Some human rights organizations reported that hearings sometimes continued in the defendant’s absence or while the defendants’ voice was not heard when video links purportedly failed.
Defendants have the right to legal representation in criminal cases and, if indigent, to have representation provided at public expense. Defendants or their attorneys could question witnesses for the prosecution, although questions must usually be presented to the judges, who are expected to ask the questions on behalf of counsel. Defendants or their attorneys could, within limits, present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf. Defendants have the right not to testify or confess guilt and the right to appeal. The law provides for court-provided language interpretation when needed. Human rights groups alleged interpretation was not always provided free of charge, leaving some poor, non-Turkish-speaking defendants disadvantaged by the need to pay for interpretation.
Observers noted the prosecutors and courts often failed to establish evidence to sustain indictments and convictions in cases related to supporting terrorism, highlighting concerns regarding respect for due process and adherence to credible evidentiary thresholds. In numerous cases authorities used secret evidence or witnesses to which defense attorneys and the accused had no access or ability to cross-examine and challenge in court, particularly in cases related to national security. The government occasionally refused to acknowledge the use of evidence from, or to provide information about, secret witnesses during open court proceedings and in interactions with defense.
Political Prisoners and Detainees
The number of political prisoners remained a subject of debate at year’s end. On the fifth anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt in July, the Ministry of Interior announced that authorities had detained 312,121 and arrested 99,123 individuals since the coup attempt on grounds of alleged affiliation with the Gulen movement. NGOs estimated that at least 8,500 individuals were held in pretrial detention or were imprisoned following conviction for alleged links with the PKK. Some observers considered some of the individuals detained on terrorism or other charges to be political prisoners, particularly when charges stemmed from affiliation with the Gulen movement or journalistic work, a position the government disputed.
Prosecutors used a broad definition of terrorism and threats to national security and, according to defense lawyers and opposition groups, in some cases used what appeared to be legally questionable evidence to file criminal charges against and prosecute a broad range of individuals, including media workers, human rights activists, opposition politicians (primarily of the HDP), suspected PKK sympathizers, alleged Gulen movement members or affiliates, and others critical of the government. In some cases charges resulted in government seizure of company, charity, or business assets.
Human rights groups alleged many detainees had no substantial link to terrorism and were detained to silence critical voices or weaken political opposition to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), particularly the HDP or its partner party, the Democratic Regions Party.
As of year’s end, seven former HDP parliamentarians and six HDP comayors were in detention following arrest. According to the HDP, since July 2015 at least 5,000 HDP lawmakers, executives, and party members were incarcerated for a variety of charges related to terrorism and political speech. Since 2019 the Ministry of Interior suspended 48 of 65 elected HDP mayors in the southeast based on allegations of support for terrorism related to the PKK. Six additional HDP mayors were not permitted to assume office following the 2019 elections on the grounds that they had been dismissed from their public jobs by governmental decrees. Because the mayors were suspended but not removed, pursuant to 2018 antiterror legislation, local residents did not have the opportunity to elect other representatives. The government appointed officials to govern these 48 municipalities in lieu of the removed elected mayors. Of the suspended mayors, authorities arrested 39. By August 2019 the government had suspended most of the mayors elected in the southeast in March 2019, including the HDP mayors of the major southeastern cities Diyarbakir, Mardin, and Van. The government suspended most mayors for ongoing investigations into their alleged support for PKK terrorism, largely dating to before their respective elections.
The Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office continued prosecution of 108 individuals, including former HDP cochairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag and other officials of the HDP and the HDP’s sister party, the Democratic Regions Party, for their alleged instigation of violence in the 2014 Kobane protests. A total of 28 defendants were arrested and held in detention at the start of the case. The Kobane protests erupted over perceived government inaction in response to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) takeover of the majority-Kurdish town of Kobane, Syria, and resulted in at least 37 deaths, including of two police officers. In February prosecutors submitted a summary of proceedings to lift the parliamentary immunity of nine HDP parliamentarians, including cochair Pervin Buldan in connection with the Kobane protest charges. In June the court ruled for the release with an international travel ban of former Kars comayor Ayhan Bilgen, arrested in 2020, and three other defendants in the case. Court proceedings continued at year’s end. Prosecutors charged the defendants with “disrupting the unity and territorial integrity of the state,” multiple counts of homicide and attempted homicide, and insult charges.
Former HDP cochair and presidential candidate Demirtas remained in prison on terrorism charges in connection with the Kobane case, despite 2018 and 2020 ECHR rulings for his release. He has been imprisoned since 2016. In April a court granted the prosecutors’ request to merge the case against Demirtas with the main Kobane case. In March in a separate case, a court sentenced Demirtas to three-and-a-half years in prison for insulting President Erdogan during a 2015 speech. In 2020 the Constitutional Court ruled that Demirtas’s lengthy pretrial detention violated his rights, but he was not released on the basis of an investigation into the Kobane case.
In March parliament expelled HDP member Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu after the country’s top appeals court upheld his sentence for “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.” In 2018 Gergerlioglu was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in connection with social media posts made in 2016. Police arrested Gergerlioglu in April, who was briefly hospitalized before transferring to prison. In July the Constitutional Court ruled that Gergerlioglu’s conviction violated his “right to be elected and to engage in political activities” and his “right” to personal liberty and security. Authorities released him from prison. Gergerlioglu regained his status and rejoined the parliament the same month.
In January the Constitutional Court ruled for a second time in favor of CHP parliamentarian Enis Berberoglu after a lower court refused to implement its earlier September 2020 ruling. Parliament expelled Berberoglu in June 2020 after a conviction for revealing MIT activities in Syria. Similar to its September 2020 ruling, the Constitutional Court’s January ruling found the government’s handling of Berberoglu’s case had violated his rights to be elected and to engage in political activities and his right to personal liberty and security. Berberoglu regained his parliamentary status in February.
Students, artists, and association members faced criminal investigations for alleged terrorism-related activities. The government did not consider those in custody for alleged PKK or Gulen movement ties to be political prisoners and did not permit access to them by human rights or humanitarian organizations.
Credible reports claimed that authorities subjected some persons jailed on terrorism-related charges to abuses, including long solitary confinement, unnecessary strip and cavity searches, severe limitations on outdoor exercise and out-of-cell activity, denial of access to prison library and media, slow medical attention, and in some cases the denial of medical treatment. Reports also alleged that authorities subjected visitors of prisoners accused of terrorism-related crimes to abuse, including limiting access to family and degrading treatment by prison guards, including strip searches.
Politically Motivated Reprisal against Individuals Located Outside the Country
The government engaged in a worldwide effort to apprehend suspected members of the Gulen movement. There were credible reports that the government exerted bilateral pressure on other countries to take adverse action against specific individuals, at times without due process. According to a report by several UN special rapporteurs in May 2020, the government reportedly coordinated with other states to forcibly transfer more than 100 Turkish nationals to Turkey since the 2016 coup attempt. The UN rapporteur’s report specified that 40 individuals were subjected to enforced disappearance. In its February report on transitional repression, Freedom House documented 58 cases of individuals whom Turkey renditioned from 17 countries since 2014 but assessed that additional cases were not documented by public sources. Freedom House has concluded that since 2014 Turkey carried out the highest number of renditions without due process in the world.
Extraterritorial Killing, Kidnapping, Forced Returns, or Other Violence or Threats of Violence: There were credible allegations that Turkish intelligence forces kidnapped alleged members of the Gulen movement in third countries and returned them to Turkey to stand trial.
In July, President Erdogan announced that Turkish intelligence forces captured and returned to Turkey from the Kyrgyz Republic Orhan Inandi, the head of the Gulen-movement-associated Sapat educational network. Inandi is a dual citizen of Turkey and the Kyrgyz Republic. Inandi’s wife reported him missing in May, and he was considered a missing person until Turkish authorities announced he was in their custody. The Kyrgyz Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Kyrgyz authorities did not cooperate or have knowledge of Inandi’s rendition and urged Turkey to return Inandi. A lawyer for the Inandi family alleged Inandi was tortured and that his arm was broken while his whereabouts were unknown.
In May authorities released a statement that Selahaddin Gulen, the nephew of Fethullah Gulen whom the government blamed for the 2016 coup attempt, was in government custody after he was captured by the country’s intelligence forces in another country. Gulen vanished in Kenya earlier in May. Human Rights Watch reported that Kenyan police arrested Gulen in October 2020 because of an INTERPOL red notice from Turkey and opened extradition proceedings against him. The INTERPOL red notice reportedly related to a child molestation charge against Gulen. Once in Turkey, Gulen faced charges of managing an armed terrorist organization. Human Rights Watch further reported Gulen sought asylum in Kenya and that a Kenyan court ordered a ruling halting deportation proceedings in March. Kenyan authorities did not confirm their involvement in the rendition.
Threats, Harassment, Surveillance, and Coercion: Relatives of individuals who fled the country for fear of politically motivated abuse reported that security forces used threats and intimidation to pressure them to reveal the individual’s location or encourage them to return to Turkey.
Misuse of International Law-enforcement Tools: There were credible reports that the government attempted to use INTERPOL red notices to target specific individuals located outside the country, alleging ties to terrorism connected to the 2016 coup attempt or to the PKK, based on little evidence. Freedom House reported that since the 2016 coup attempt, the country had uploaded tens of thousands of requests in INTERPOL for persons the government designated as affiliated with the Gulen movement. There were also reports that individuals faced complications related to erroneous lost or stolen passport reports the government filed against suspected Gulen movement supporters in the years directly following the coup attempt. Targeted individuals often had no clearly identified role in the attempted coup but were associated with the Gulen movement or had spoken in favor of it. The reports to INTERPOL have led to individuals’ detention or prevented them from traveling.
In June an Istanbul court upheld an extradition order for Can Dundar, the former editor in chief of the newspaper Cumhuriyet, convicted and sentenced in absentia to 27 years’ imprisonment for reporting on alleged illicit arms shipments by Turkish intelligence officers to Syria. Dundar lived in exile in Germany. The court also approved a Ministry of Justice request to seek an INTERPOL red notice for Dundar.
Efforts to Control Mobility: The government continued to refuse to renew the passports of some citizens with temporary residency permits in other countries on political grounds, claiming they were members of “Gulenist” organizations; these individuals were unable to travel outside their countries of residence.
Bilateral pressure: There was evidence the government applied bilateral pressure on other countries to secure their assistance with renditions without full due process.
Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies
The constitution provides for an independent and impartial judiciary in civil matters, although this differed in practice. Citizens and legal entities such as organizations and companies have the right to file a civil case for compensation for physical or psychological harm, including for human rights violations. On constitutional and human rights issues, the law also provides for individuals to appeal their cases directly to the Constitutional Court, theoretically allowing for faster and simpler high-level review of alleged human rights violations within contested court decisions. Critics complained that, despite this mechanism, the large volume of appeals of dismissals under the state of emergency and decreased judicial capacity caused by purges in the judiciary resulted in slow proceedings.
As of September 30, the Constitutional Court had received 40,286 applications and found rights law violations in 6 percent of applications, according to official statistics. Of the 2020 applications, 27 percent remained pending. Citizens who have exhausted all domestic remedies have the right to apply for redress to the ECHR; however, the government rarely implemented ECHR decisions.
The Inquiry Commission on the State of Emergency Measures has adjudicated appeals of wrongfully dismissed civil servants since 2017. The commission reported that as of the end of October, it had received 126,758 applications, adjudicated 118,415 cases, approved 15,050, and rejected 103,365. Critics complained the appeals process was opaque, slow, and did not respect citizens’ rights to due process, including by prohibiting defendants from seeing the evidence against them or presenting exculpatory evidence in their defense.
Property Seizure and Restitution
In multiple parts of the southeast, many citizens continued efforts to appeal the government’s 2016 seizures of properties to reconstruct areas damaged in government-PKK fighting (see section 1.g.).
According to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey, as of May the government had seized 796 businesses worth an estimated 70.2 billion lira ($7.5 billion) since the 2016 coup attempt. A March 2020 NGO report estimated that 302 billion lira ($32.2) billion in businesses and business assets, including from media outlets, schools, universities, hospitals, banks, private companies, and other holdings were confiscated since the 2016 coup attempt in breach of domestic regulations.
f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
While the constitution provides for the “secrecy of private life” and states that individuals have the right to demand protection and correction of their personal information and data, the law provides the MIT with the authority to collect information while limiting the ability of the public or journalists to expose abuses. Oversight of the MIT falls within the purview of the presidency and checks on MIT authorities are limited. The MIT may collect data from any entity without a warrant or other judicial process for approval. At the same time, the law establishes criminal penalties for conviction of interfering with MIT activities, including data collection or obtaining or publishing information concerning the agency. The law allows the president to grant the MIT and its employees’ immunity from prosecution.
Police possess broad powers for personal search and seizure. Senior police officials may authorize search warrants, with judicial permission required to follow within 24 hours. Individuals subjected to such searches have the right to file complaints; however, judicial permission occurring after a search had already taken place failed to serve as a check against abuse.
Security forces may conduct wiretaps for up to 48 hours without a judge’s approval. As a check against potential abuse of this power, the State Inspection Board may conduct annual inspections and present its reports for review to parliament’s Security and Intelligence Commission. Information on how often this authority was used was not available. Human rights groups noted that wiretapping without a court order circumvented judicial control and potentially limited citizens’ right to privacy. Some citizens asserted that authorities tapped their telephones and accessed their email or social media accounts. There was evidence the government monitored private online communications using nontransparent legal authority.
In February, Yuksel Kepenek, the CHP mayor of Honaz in Denizli Province, reported finding a listening device in his office. Kepenek blamed government authorities for installing the device.
Following the outbreak of COVID-19, the Ministry of Interior’s General Security Directorate announced it would monitor social media users’ posts that “disrupt public order” by spreading panic. The ministry gained the authority to search social media accounts as part of a “virtual patrol” for terrorist propaganda, insults, and other crimes in 2018. The Constitutional Court ruled in March 2020 that such surveillance was unconstitutional and that police must seek a court order to gather information on the identity of internet users or request user identity information from internet providers. The Ministry of Interior, however, continued to monitor social media accounts, and courts continued to accept evidence collected through the program. The ministry announced that it examined 5,934 social media accounts in the month of January and detained 118 individuals because of investigations. The ministry has not shared updated monthly information on social media account surveillance since January. Following the outbreak of massive wildfires in July, the minister of interior announced that the ministry examined 3,246 accounts for provocative information and took legal action against 172 users. The HRA reported that the Ministry of Interior examined a total of 98,714 social media accounts, detained 1,175 individuals, and arrested 52 because of the investigations in the first nine months of the year.
The law allows courts to order domestic internet service providers to block access to links, including to websites, articles, or social media posts. Authorities routinely blocked access to news sites. The NGO EngelliWeb reported that in 2020 authorities blocked 5,645 news site addresses on the internet. In 81 percent of the cases, site administrators removed the publication following the block.
Human rights groups asserted that self-censorship due to fear of official reprisal accounted in part for the relatively low number of complaints they received regarding allegations of torture or mistreatment.
Using antiterror legislation, the government targeted family members to exert pressure on wanted suspects. Government measures included cancelling the passports of family members of civil servants suspended or dismissed from state institutions, as well as of those who had fled authorities. In some cases the Ministry of Interior cancelled or refused to issue passports for the minor children of individuals outside the country who were wanted for or accused of ties to the Gulen movement. In July the Constitutional Court ruled that the provisions of the Passport Law allowing the Ministry of Interior to cancel passports violated freedom of travel rights protected by the constitution. The court found that passport cancellations on terrorism grounds must be subject to judicial review. The Constitutional Court ruled that its decision will go into effect in July 2022 and obligated the executive branch to develop new regulations within that timeframe.
Government seizure and closure during the previous five years of hundreds of businesses accused of links to the Gulen movement created ambiguous situations for the privacy of client information.
g. Conflict-related Abuses
Occasional clashes between Turkish security forces and the PKK and its affiliates in the country continued throughout the year and resulted in the injury or deaths of security forces, PKK terrorists, and civilians. The government continued security operations against the PKK and its affiliates in various areas of the east and southeast. Authorities issued curfews of varying duration in certain urban and rural areas and also decreed “special security zones” in some areas to facilitate counter-PKK operations, which restricted access of visitors and, in some cases, residents. Portions of Hakkari Province and rural portions of Tunceli Province remained “special security zones” most of the year. PKK attacks claimed the lives of civilians, as did kidnappings. Residents of these areas reported they occasionally had very little time to leave their homes prior to the launch of counter-PKK security operations.
Turkish-supported Syrian armed opposition groups (TSOs) in northern Syria committed human rights abuses, reportedly targeting Kurdish and Yezidi residents and other civilians, including extrajudicial killings, the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of civilians, torture, sexual violence, forced evacuations from homes, looting and seizure of private property, transfer of detained civilians across the border into Turkey, recruitment of child soldiers, and the looting and desecration of religious shrines. One such group, Ahrar al-Sharqiya, allegedly committed serious human rights abuses, including abduction and torture, and was reportedly involved in looting private property from civilians and barring displaced Syrians from returning to their homes. Multiple credible sources also held the group responsible for the unlawful killing of Hevrin Khalaf, a Syrian Kurdish politician, in 2019. Ahrar al-Sharqiya also integrated numerous former ISIS members into its ranks.
A coalition of 34 NGOs assessed some TSO abuses were part of a systematic effort to enforce demographic change targeting Kurdish Syrians. The UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria reported on the frequent presence of Turkish officials in Syrian National Army (SNA) detention facilities, including in interrogation sessions where torture was used. The SNA is a coalition of TSOs. The justice system and detention network used by SNA forces reportedly featured “judges” appointed by Turkey and paid in Turkish lira, suggesting the SNA detention operations acted under the effective command of Turkish forces. The Commission of Inquiry for Syria asserted these and other factors reflected effective Turkish control over certain areas of Syria. The government denied responsibility for conduct by opposition groups it supported but broadly acknowledged the need for investigations and accountability related to such reports and asserted that the Turkish-supported SNA had mechanisms in place for investigation and discipline. (For more information, see the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights for Syria).
Killings: According to the International Crisis Group, from mid-2015 to November 15, a total of 593 civilians and 226 individuals of unknown affiliation died in PKK-related fighting in the country and surrounding region.
The HRA reported that as of December, three civilians were killed during clashes between security forces and the PKK within the country’s borders.
The PKK kidnapped soldiers and police personnel as hostages in 2015 and 2016 and later took them to PKK camps in northern Iraq. In February the PKK killed the 13 unarmed hostages when the Turkish military launched a hostage rescue operation in northern Iraq’s Gara region.
PKK tactics reportedly included targeted killings and assault with conventional weapons, vehicle-borne bombs, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). At times, IEDs or unexploded ordnance, usually attributed to the PKK, killed or maimed civilians and security forces. TSO clashes with groups the Turkish government considered to be affiliated with the PKK resulted in civilian deaths in Syria. (For more information, see the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights for Syria).
Abductions: The PKK abducted or attempted to abduct civilians (see Child Soldiers, below).
Human Rights Watch and the Commission of Inquiry for Syria reported that SNA forces detained and unlawfully transferred Syrian nationals to Turkey. (For more information, see the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights for Syria).
Physical Abuse, Punishment, and Torture: The UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria reported on the frequent presence of Turkish officials in TSO detention facilities, including in interrogation sessions where torture was used.
Human rights groups alleged that police, other government security forces, and the PKK abused some civilian residents of the southeast. There was little accountability for mistreatment by government authorities.
Child Soldiers: The government and some members of Kurdish communities alleged the PKK recruited and forcibly abducted children for conscription. A group of mothers continued a sit-in protest they began in Diyarbakir in 2019 alleging the PKK had forcibly recruited or kidnapped their children and demanding their return. According to the Directorate of Communications of the Presidency, 438 children escaped and left the PKK between January 2014 and June 2020.
Human rights groups and international bodies reported the government provided operational, equipment, and financial support to an armed opposition group in Syria that recruited child soldiers (see the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.
Other Conflict-related Abuse: Extensive damage stemming from government-PKK fighting led authorities in 2016 to seize certain properties in specific districts of the southeast. Authorities stated that the purpose of the seizures was to facilitate postconflict reconstruction. Many of these areas remained inaccessible to residents at year’s end. In Diyarbakir’s Sur District, the government had not returned or completed repairs on many of the seized properties, including the historic and ancient sites inside Sur, such as the Surp Giragos Armenian Church and the Mar Petyun Chaldean Church. The government allocated 30 million lira ($3.8 million) to renovate four churches; renovations on two of them were completed. Some affected residents filed court challenges seeking permission to remain on seized land and receive compensation; many of these cases remained pending at year’s end. In certain cases, courts awarded compensation to aggrieved residents, although the latter complained awards were insufficient. The overall number of those awarded compensation was unavailable at year’s end.
Government actions and adverse security conditions impacted individuals’ ability to exercise their freedoms, including limiting journalists’ and international observers’ access to affected areas, which made monitoring and assessing the aftermath of urban conflicts difficult.