One of the world’s leading legal news platforms, Law.com International, has published a comprehensive report spotlighting the escalating legal repression in Turkey, particularly targeting lawyers and the judiciary in the wake of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016.
The article describes a “rare reprieve” in the recent release of Fırat Epözdemir, a member of the Istanbul Bar Association’s Executive Board, after four months of pretrial detention. Epözdemir had been accused of membership in a terrorist organization and spreading terrorist propaganda in connection with the PKK/KCK investigations.
However, Law.com notes that Epözdemir is far from alone. Citing data from the Arrested Lawyers Initiative, the report reveals that more than 1,600 lawyers were prosecuted and detained in the five years following the 2016 coup attempt. Of those, 474 were convicted on terrorism-related charges, receiving a cumulative sentence of nearly 3,000 years in prison.
The report also features testimony from Coşkun Yorulmaz, a legal advisor for Brussels-based human rights organization Solidarity With Others, who has lived in exile for nearly a decade. Yorulmaz emphasizes the deteriorating conditions for practicing law in Turkey, asserting that even in commercial disputes, lawyers who challenge individuals with government ties face retaliation.
“Judges have been caught accepting bribes and extorting money. After the mass purges, the government filled the judiciary with inexperienced lawyers whose main qualification was loyalty to power,” Yorulmaz said. “The quality of justice has sharply declined, and under these conditions, practicing law independently and ethically has become nearly impossible.”
Yorulmaz traces the origins of the crackdown to as early as 2014, when the Turkish government began expanding vague and overly broad anti-terror laws. Following the 2016 coup attempt, those laws were used as a pretext for the mass detention of lawyers and judges, effectively crippling the independence of the judiciary. “The judiciary was rapidly neutralized,” he stated.
According to the article, Turkish bar associations have reported on torture and widespread human rights abuses, making them additional targets for government retaliation. In March, the Istanbul 2nd Civil Court dismissed the entire Executive Board of the Istanbul Bar Association for issuing a statement condemning the killing of journalists in Syria.
Prosecutors subsequently charged 11 board members, including Fırat Epözdemir and Bar Association President İbrahim Kaboğlu, with disseminating false information and engaging in terrorist propaganda — crimes that carry potential prison sentences of up to 12 years.
Law.com International’s exposé paints a grim picture of a legal system under siege, where repression has become institutionalized, and where the pursuit of justice is fraught with personal risk for those who dare to dissent.
