Turkey: IBAHRI and TALI release report documenting mass imprisonment of lawyers

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The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and The Arrested Lawyers Initiative (TALI) have released a detailed report highlighting the declining independence of the legal profession and bar associations in Turkey. The report, A Profession on Trial: The Systematic Crackdown Against Lawyers in Turkey, underscores the targeting of law professionals through unfair trials, arbitrary detainment, imprisonment and harassment, as well as the alarming misuse of counter-terrorism legislation to prosecute lawyers in the course of their legitimate work.

In 2019, the designated country for the focus of the Day of the Endangered Lawyer was Turkey. Since that time, the independence of the legal profession has significantly diminished. In 77 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, lawyers have been detained, prosecuted and convicted following the 2016 coup attempt, particularly on the basis of vague and broad anti-terror offences. Charges have included membership to an armed terrorism organisation and/or of spreading terrorist propaganda – under Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Law No 3713. These charges are often combined with the misidentification of lawyers with their clients. More than 1,700 lawyers have been prosecuted, with 700 lawyers remanded to pretrial detention. Thus far, at least 553 lawyers have been sentenced to a total of 3,380 years in prison.