TO UNDERSTAND the human rights violations against Kurds today, it is essential to recognize that this issue originates not only in contemporary political decisions but also in nearly a century of State practices. The issues faced by the Kurdish people in Turkey are not merely a conflict of an ethnic group’s culture but represent a historical problem directly tied to the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey and intertwine the Turkish State’s conception of identity, its interpretation of citizenship, and its vision of sovereignty.
The erasure of Kurdish identity
Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey was founded on the concept of a modern nation-State in a multilingual region inhabited by diverse ethnic groups, including the Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Laz, Circassians, Armenians, Greeks, and Syriacs. This model rested on the principle of ’one nation, one language, one identity'. The Republic’s founding ideology framed ethnic and cultural diversity not as a source of richness, but as a threat to be controlled.
Within this framework, Kurds were denied recognition as a distinct people, labelled as ‘mountain Turks’. The Kurdish language was systematically excluded from the public sphere, Kurdish identity was erased from official discourse and uprisings were suppressed through military force. The strand that runs common through these issues is a coherent administrative logic that excludes Kurds from the normal regime of citizenship and permanently situates them, using the language of law, within a framework of exceptionalism.
As a result of the State's disregard for Kurds and its assimilation policies, particularly the approach formalized by the 1924 Turkish Constitution, Kurds have been engaged in a continuous process of rebellion stretching from 1925 to the present day.
Between the 1920s and the 1990s, rebellions, deportations, village evacuations and emergency provisions were systematically employed to enforce this policy. As a result of the State's disregard for Kurds and its assimilation policies, particularly the approach formalized by the 1924 Turkish Constitution, Kurds have been engaged in a continuous process of rebellion stretching from 1925 to the present day.
In State records, the movement led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is formally designated as the 29th Kurdish uprising; yet it is more comprehensive than all previous uprisings combined, and has continued without interruption for over five decades, carried forward today under the leadership of Abdullah Öcalan. The escalating conflict between the Turkish State and the PKK in the 1990s revealed that the issue had taken on a distinctly political dimension. This period remains etched in collective memory as a time when thousands of villages were destroyed, millions of people were forcibly displaced, and widespread practices of torture and unresolved killings occurred.
Over time, the regime of denial has transformed into a ‘Security-State’ where Kurdish identity is consistently treated as a ‘permanent risk’. As a result, systematic violations occur across multiple domains, including access to justice, education, participation in local governance, and environmental rights. The judiciary is one of the areas where this structure is most visible.
Politicization of the judiciary
In modern States, the judiciary serves as one of the fundamental mechanisms safeguarding individuals against the power of the state. Universal legal principles are designed to ensure that all citizens are treated equally, regardless of ethnic origin, political views, or beliefs. For the Kurds, however, the judiciary often fails to fulfill this protective role, and instead, operates as an extension of the State’s exclusionary policies.
Turkey’s recent history is marked by political trials that can be best described as ‘social cases’, notably, the prosecutions of Sheikh Sait and Seyit Rıza, the ‘49s Trial’ of the 1960s, the trial of Member of Parliaments from the Democratic Party in the 1990s, and the ongoing cases against the Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union (KCK) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
All of them were conducted through exceptional judicial mechanisms. The Courts of Independence, State Security Courts, Specially Authorized Courts and the current Special Criminal Regime based on the anti-terrorism law have functioned as systems that bypass ordinary legal safeguards. Kurdish political activity has consistently been treated as an ‘extraordinary’ domain, with the law itself reduced to a tool that can be suspended.
The reasoning behind this exceptionalism is that the Republic of Turkey has never treated Kurds as equal and ordinary citizens; instead, it has governed them for decades through special legal practices and dedicated courts. The Kurdish areas have been administered almost continuously under martial law or ‘state of emergency’ regimes. As a natural consequence of these extraordinary forms of governance, the courts established in the region have persisted as specialised, exceptional judicial bodies even as their names have changed across different political eras.
The vague provisions of the anti-terrorism law form the foundation of this system. Under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law No. 3713, particularly Articles 7/1 and 7/2, phrases such as ‘committing a crime on behalf of an organization,’ ‘affiliation with an organization,’ and ‘actions within the scope of an organization’s activities’ lack legal precision and are open to broad interpretation. This ambiguity enables the prosecution of citizens engaged in peaceful demonstrations, journalists posting on social media, and local councillors, all under the category of ‘terrorism offences.’
These practices have not been limited to Kurdish citizens alone. Foreign human rights defenders, politicians and journalists engaged with the Kurdish issue have equally been targeted through the same legal mechanisms. One prominent example is that of German journalist Deniz Yücel, the Turkey correspondent for Die Welt, who was arrested in 2017 on charges of “propagating a terrorist organization,” charges the European Court of Human Rights later ruled constituted a violation of his right to liberty and freedom of expression, ordering Turkey to pay compensation. His case is one of thousands. Numerous similar cases have been brought before the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly found Turkey in violation and ordered it to pay compensation.
While international human rights bodies and the Turkish Constitutional Court have repeatedly affirmed that these regulations violate freedom of expression and the right to assemble, Turkey’s institutional response has been one of systematic non-compliance. In Erdoğdu v. Turkey (2000), the conviction of a journalist for publishing an interview touching on the Kurdish question was likewise held to violate Article 10. It highlighted the broader pattern of using anti-terrorism provisions to silence legitimate public discourse. In Dicle v. Turkey (2004), the Court found that the prosecution of a Kurdish politician for speeches delivered in parliament constituted a direct violation of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention, noting ordinary political speech being criminalized when it originates from Kurdish voices.
The Grand Chamber ruling in Selahattin Demirtaş v. Turkey (No. 2) (2020) found that the continued pre-trial detention of HDP Co-Chair and Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş served the ulterior purpose of suppressing political pluralism and curtailing free political debate. The Court held it as a direct violation of Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), which prohibits the restriction of rights for improper purposes, and ordered his immediate release. Yet Mr. Demirtaş has remained imprisoned for over a decade. The State's refusal to comply is a deliberate signal that the boundaries of Kurdish political participation will be policed regardless of what domestic or international courts decide.
Among Kurds, the judiciary is often perceived less as a mechanism for seeking justice than as a domain of risk. Courts are regarded not as institutions that deliver justice, but as instruments that delineate the boundaries of political will. Instead of serving as a source of protection, the law generates uncertainty and insecurity.
Under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law No. 3713 uses broad phrases which are ambiguous. This enables the prosecution of citizens engaged in peaceful demonstrations, journalists posting on social media, and local councillors, all under the category of ‘terrorism offences.’
The homogenization of language
Since the establishment of the Republic, Kurdish has been systematically excluded from the public sphere. Article 42 of the Turkish Constitution explicitly prohibits mother-tongue education in any language other than Turkish. For many years, speaking the language was prohibited, and village, mountain, and personal names were Turkified. Kurdish was portrayed as a symbol of ‘backwardness,’ treated as a ‘threat’. Although most of these bans appear to have been lifted, the language still lacks legal protection.
Kurdish is excluded from nearly all areas of public life, including health services, courts, civil registry offices, and municipalities. Citizens who do not speak Turkish, or who wish to express themselves in their mother tongue, encounter significant barriers in accessing basic services. Those who speak Kurdish are effectively relegated to second-class citizenship.
Introduced in 2012, the elective course ‘Living Languages and Dialects,’ was presented as a major breakthrough in this field. In practice, however, its outcomes revealed it to be largely symbolic. Although tens of thousands of students requested Kurdish language courses, teacher appointments remained negligible, schools lacked adequate materials, and in some cases, administrators pressured students not to select these courses. In some cases, administrators quietly discouraged students from enrolling at all. According to figures from Eğitim Sen, the education trade union, only 148 to 200 Kurdish language teachers have been officially appointed across the entire country in the thirteen years since the policy came into force. To put that in context, Turkey employs over 1.18 million school teachers, of which, around 50,000 of them teach Turkish alone. Kurdish was allocated, at its peak, fewer than 200 state teachers in over a decade.
The native language of the Kurds has been excluded from the public sphere. Such a condition is incompatible with the principles of a modern democratic state.
The subversion of political will
Another key dimension of the intervention in the public presence of Kurds is visible in local governance. Since 2016, it has become common practice in Turkey, particularly in regions with a predominantly Kurdish population, for elected mayors to be removed from office and replaced by ‘trustees’ appointed by the central administration.
Although to appoint a trustee legally denotes a ‘temporary administrator,’ in practice, it signifies the suspension of local democracy. The replacement of elected representatives with appointed bureaucrats cannot be justified solely on the basis of individual criminal charges. It reflects a broader denial of the Kurdish electorate’s political will. The local authority that emerged through the ballot box is effectively invalidated under the pretext of security concerns.
Systematic human rights violations against the Kurdish people remain one of the principal obstacles to democratization in Turkey.
The trusteeship system undermines not only local governance rights but also the public visibility of Kurds. During this period, Kurdish signage has been removed, street and park names have been altered, Kurdish nurseries have been closed, and cultural activities have been discontinued. Multilingual service policies introduced by elected municipalities have been dismantled, and public spaces have reverted to a mono-lingual, mono-identity character.
The environmental cost
The natural environment has frequently been incorporated into military strategy, with forests, mountains, and plateaus designated as ‘security zones.’ The 1990s saw hundreds of thousands of people being displaced through the burning of villages, while agricultural land, forests, and water sources were systematically destroyed. In the aftermath of unsolved murders, bodies were dumped into acid pits, both obliterating evidence and contaminating drinking water supplies.
Today, forest clearances and fires carried out under the pretext of ‘security’ illustrate the continuing destruction of woodlands. Tens of thousands of hectares have been devastated in regions such as Şırnak, Hakkâri, and Dersim in North Kurdistan/East Turkey. This destruction ties the environmental cost to the depopulation of the region and the contraction of living spaces.
The law of peace and the peace of law
Violations against the Kurdish people cannot be dismissed as mere ‘service deficiencies’ or ‘administrative errors’. Rather, they represent manifestations of a structural problem, perpetuated today through the consolidation of a Security-State. What is truly decisive, however, is that these issues are interconnected. At their core lies a coherent administrative logic that systematically denies Kurds the rights of normal citizenship.
Systematic human rights violations against the Kurdish people remain one of the principal obstacles to democratization in Turkey. Without an end to these violations, neither lasting peace nor genuine rule of law can be achieved. Ensuring recognition of the mother tongue, separating the judiciary from political influence, ending the trusteeship regime, and halting ecological destruction would signify liberation not only for the Kurds but for society as a whole.
Peace is more than the mere silence of weapons; it is the realization of equal citizenship. Laws are legitimate only insofar as they guarantee this equality. From this perspective, the Kurdish issue constitutes a critical test of Turkey’s democracy. To pass this test, the regime of denial must be abandoned, and a pluralistic social contract must be established with courage. Lest, rights violations will merely persist in new forms, as the Security-State reproduces itself under different names.