 said the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had weakened its own credibility by refusing to confront the broad pattern of democratic backsliding in #Turkey.){kind=link}
A former human rights commissioner at the Council of Europe said the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had weakened its own credibility by refusing to confront the broad pattern of democratic backsliding in Turkey.
Nils Muižnieks, who served as commissioner for human rights from 2012 to 2018 and is currently the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Belarus, made the remarks in a video interview released by the Arrested Lawyers Initiative, a group founded by Turkish lawyers living in exile that documents prosecutions and intimidation targeting their colleagues.
Muižnieks argued that the ECtHR focused on individual cases while the government carried out a years-long campaign against civil society, political opponents and the legal profession.
Muižnieks said Turkey remains more open than Belarus, with bar associations and civil society organizations still active, but warned that the “trend in Turkey is quite bad.” He said the government has relied on what he called an “authoritarian toolbox,” including jailing opposition politicians and creating fear among lawyers who take politically sensitive cases.
He said the pressure on lawyers in Turkey resembles developments in Russia, where defending political opponents has become increasingly dangerous. Russia, he said, is further along the same path.
Muižnieks criticized the ECtHR and the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which oversees the enforcement of the court’s rulings. He said both bodies had failed to act on the deeper structural problems behind Turkey’s rights violations.
He argued that the court’s case-by-case approach allowed Turkey to remain “a member in good standing” even as the government imposed long states of emergency, used terrorism charges against critics and narrowed space for dissent. He said the court “did not want to see the broader pattern” even as violations mounted.
Muižnieks also called for a stronger role from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly and said the secretary-general has never used Article 52, a legal tool that allows for a formal inquiry when a member state fails to meet its human rights obligations.
He said these bodies must “ask for much more from Turkey” if the Council of Europe is to restore its credibility in the country.
Turkey has been experiencing a deepening human rights crisis, especially since a coup attempt in 2016 that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government blames on the faith-based Gülen movement, a claim the movement strongly denies.
The Gülen movement, inspired by late Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, is renowned worldwide for its contributions to education, social welfare and interfaith dialogue.
The Turkish government, however, labeled the group as a “terrorist organization” in May 2016, a designation not recognized by other governments or major international bodies.
In the aftermath authorities carried out mass purges and terrorism prosecutions that hit alleged Gülen supporters hardest, often on the basis of routine, nonviolent activities such as working at certain schools, having accounts at a legal bank or using the ByLock encrypted messaging app.
Many prosecuted over alleged membership in the movement had to flee Turkey to avoid government’s crackdown.
In recent years Turks living in exile have gathered to protest the CoE and the ECtHR amid growing frustration with these bodies’ failure to hold Turkey accountable for continued defiance of the ECtHR judgments in landmark cases such as those of philanthropist Osman Kavala, Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş and former teacher Yüksel Yalçınkaya.
At the heart of the Yalçınkaya case is the Turkish government’s crackdown on the Gülen movement.
Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as members of his family and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. His government intensified the crackdown on it following an abortive putsch in July of the same year.
Despite the ECtHR’s 2023 ruling in favor of Yalçınkaya, who was convicted based on evidence linking him to the Gülen movement, a Turkish court reimposed his sentence in 2024. The CoE’s Committee of Ministers has yet to initiate infringement proceedings over the case, prompting criticism from human rights monitors and lawmakers.
Thousands of people have been detained in Turkey since the ECtHR issued the Yalçınkaya judgment on similar allegations such as downloading the ByLock messaging app or having accounts at Gülen-linked banks.