GENEVA - The continued criminalisation of human rights defenders and lawyers in Türkiye must stop, UN experts* said today.
"The charges human rights defenders face are mostly based on anti-terrorism laws," the experts said. "Members of a prominent human rights organisation, the Human Rights Association (İHD), have clearly been singled out."
İHD member, Hatice Onaran, was in 2024 convicted of "violating the law on financing terrorism" for providing small sums of money, in line with prison regulations, to support the basic needs of unwell and financially incapacitated prisoners, including those convicted of terrorism-related offenses in allegedly unfair trials. She was sentenced to four years and two months in prison. She was released on 14 February 2026 for six months on medical grounds.
İHD lawyers Osman Süzen and Suna Bilgin were charged with membership of an armed terrorist organisation. Bilgin was sentenced last December to six years and three months in prison in relation to her work defending former members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation. Süzen was acquitted of all charges.
"We are concerned that Ms. Bilgin's conviction is linked to her work as a lawyer, especially since last month two more İHD members, Ms. Tuğba Kahraman and Mr. Mehmet Acettin, were charged in identical cases," the experts said.
A sixth İHD member, Ismail Boyraz, is under investigation for 'participating in an unlawful assembly' after he joined a teachers union protest in Ankara in May 2024.
Another human rights lawyer, Sabri Güngen, was assaulted by police in March 2025 whilst filming his client who showed signs of ill-treatment while in custody. In late 2025 he was subjected to verbal abuse by a local prosecutor and further police violence.
"We have raised concerns with the authorities and pointed to State obligations to guarantee the safety of lawyers and their freedom from intimidation and forms of retaliation," the experts said.
"We urge the Government of Türkiye to fully comply with international human rights law and to ensure that its anti terrorism legislation contains a precise and narrowly tailored definition of terrorism, consistent with the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and non discrimination," they said. "Such legislation must not be used to arbitrarily restrict the rights to freedom of expression, opinion, peaceful assembly, and association, nor to enable or justify arbitrary detention. We further call on the authorities to end the criminalisation of human rights defenders."
The misuse of anti-terrorism laws has been the subject of multiple letters from UN Special Procedures mandate holders to the Turkish Government in 2023 and 2020. The İHD has also been the subject of numerous communications to the Turkish authorities, most recently in 2022 and 2021. The most recent prosecution of its staff is linked to their work on prisoners' rights, alleged torture cases and the promotion of a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue.
The experts are in contact with the Government of Türkiye on this issue.
