Fifteen girls aged 13 to 17 have been detained and will be brought to court to testify against their older siblings and parents in a political witch hunt in Turkey unless the world reacts and sends a message to Turkish courts and the Ministry of Justice that this is unacceptable.
Unacceptable—yet unsurprising. Whenever you think the authoritarian Turkish government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can’t go any lower, it somehow finds a way. Erdogan has spent the last year engaged in human rights repressions against its own law-abiding citizens for belonging—or even the suspicion of belonging—to Hizmet, a peaceful civil society movement, which Erdogan has designated a terrorist organization. Under the auspices of that slander, the Erdogan regime has made an art of turning families against each other.
Unfortunately, I know this story from firsthand experience. Turkey jailed my father to put pressure on me, one of their most outspoken critics, and they have kidnapped the relatives of Fethullah Gulen, the inspiration for Hizmet. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been persecuted, fired from their jobs, jailed, and even tortured.
Now, they are forcing teenage girls in Turkey to testify in court against their parents and older siblings, a dangerous erosion of civil liberties and human rights.
In the early hours of May 7, under the orders of Istanbul’s chief prosecutor to look for “a child dragged into crime,” police rounded up 15 girls “for informational purposes,” forcibly searched their homes, and held them in detention for nearly 16 hours, during which they were treated like criminals, denied legal representation, and subjected to psychological pressure. The United Nations‘ Guidelines on Justice in Matters Involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime emphasize that children should be treated with respect and compassion, considering their age, maturity, and individual circumstances.
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The detention and interrogation violated Turkey’s own legal statutes, too, and it certainly impacted the girls’ own mental states of mind.
But while they were treated poorly while they were detained, the girls’ saga didn’t end after they were released late that night. This coming week, they will be called to testify against their families who have been unjustly accused of involvement in so-called “terror activities”—namely, for associating with Hizmet, a movement focused on humanitarianism, education, and interfaith tolerance. It is notable that no Western country has fallen for Turkey’s tactic of abusing counter-terrorism laws for political ends.
This is the latest example of a broader pattern of discrimination against Hizmet participants, tracing back to a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Despite uncertainty about the coup’s organizers, Turkish authorities used it as pretext to shut down 3,520 Hizmet entities and confiscate their assets, including 147 media organizations, 1,284 schools, 800 dormitories, 54 hospitals, and 1,125 foundations. More than 690,000 people have been prosecuted and more than 122,000 people have been convicted.
Turkey’s elastic interpretation of terrorism has led to arbitrary actions that compromise legal principles and individual freedoms, from unwarranted detentions to obstruction of legal representation to the criminalization of harmless social and religious practices. An Amnesty International report in 2021 found that Turkish authorities “weaponized” anti-terrorism legislation to target civic organizations. In the same year, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention observed that Turkey’s widespread imprisonment practices, which violate international norms, might be classified as crimes against humanity.
And this arbitrary application of “terrorism” extends even to minors under the age of 18. Between 2015 and 2021, the last year we have data from the Turkish Ministry of Justice, 15,258 children were tried for terrorism-related offenses. Although age-specific data has not been released since 2021, estimates suggest that close to 20,000 children have faced similar charges. At least 3,763 of these children were convicted, with 2,225 being sentenced under Article 314 of the Turkish Penal Code for membership in or leadership of an armed organization. Additionally, 1,614 children received actual prison sentences.
By any measure, it’s just plain ridiculous. In the incident involving these 15 girls, the accusations from the investigating prosecutor’s 529-page indictment largely center on everyday activities like socializing, mentoring younger students, paying for housing, or distributing food assistance.
According to the June indictment, the primary accusation focuses on 12 female university students who voluntarily provided English and religious lessons to middle and high school children at four different homes in Istanbul. These educational activities were conducted with the consent of the students’ parents, while the women also organized religious and social gatherings among themselves.
Yet these actions are being construed as evidence of terrorist involvement.
To better understand these girls’ predicament and their desire to find community, realize this: Targeted families face social ostracism, leading them to form bonds primarily within their marginalized community. Paradoxically, when they support each other and their children form friendships, such interactions are often deemed “terrorist” collaboration. It is a catch-22 situation for these youngsters: They are ostracized from the broader community and left to socialize only with peers who have been similarly blacklisted by the government. But when they do that, they are charged with criminal activity.
This travesty of justice has led to several human rights violations, including the rights to liberty and security, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment. Furthermore, the interrogation of minors under duress, threats made against the children, and the arbitrary detention of their family members constitute severe breaches of international human rights standards.
Children should never be forced to testify in cases designed to criminalize innocent individuals, let alone their own family members.
There are countless tragedies—of the human rights variety or otherwise—competing for attention around the world, but the international community cannot let this one slip by unnoticed. It needs international attention and monitoring at the least. Even better would be an investigation with international oversight into the unlawful detention and mistreatment of these girls.
If the Turkish government gets away yet again with violating its own citizens’ rights, it means they will push for even lower lows in the future. I urge bar associations, human rights observers, and international organizations to send a message to Turkish courts and the minister of justice that their actions against minors are in violation of so many international treaties and a disgrace to humanity.
Enes Kanter Freedom (@EnesFreedom) was a center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association. He is a Turkish dissident and human rights activist.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
