UN condemns Türkiye for criminalizing human rights lawyers
JURIST reports in April 2026 that UN special rapporteurs publicly urged Türkiye to halt the criminalization of human rights defenders and lawyers, citing seven incidents in the past year in which members or counsel of the Human Rights Association (İHD) were investigated, arrested, or jailed under Türkiye’s broadly drafted anti-terrorism law. The experts called for the law to be narrowed to a “precise and narrowly tailored” definition of terrorism and warned that current practice violates Türkiye’s obligations regarding lawyers’ freedom from intimidation and retaliation. The UN noted it had first raised these concerns formally in 2020. The article underscores the long-running structural use of counter-terrorism law to suppress the independent Turkish bar — a recurring tactic in countries undergoing competitive-authoritarian consolidation.