In March, Öztürk Türkdoğan, co-chair of the into force on 1 July. According to IHD, was arrested during a police raid in his independent women’s rights organizations, home on suspicion of “membership of a 280 women were killed during the year as a terrorist organization”. He was released the result of gender-based violence and 217 same day with judicial control measures. women were found suspiciously dead. In March, the prosecutor at the Court of Cassation issued his opinion asking for the LGBTI PEOPLE’S RIGHTS conviction of Taner Kılıç, the former Chair of In a tweet in January, the minister of interior Amnesty International Turkey, to be upheld referred to four Boğazici University students without justification, while requesting that the as “LGBT perverts”. He was commenting on convictions of Özlem Dalkıran, Idil Eser and the students’ arrest in relation to a campus Günal Kurşun be overturned. The case was art exhibition depicting a religious site with pending before the Court of Cassation at the symbols of the LGBTI community. end of the year. In March, the government attempted to In September, Raci Bilici, former chair of justify the withdrawal from the Istanbul the IHD’s Diyarbakır branch, was retried after Convention by claiming that the Convention the Regional Appeals Court overturned his was instrumentalized to “normalize conviction in December 2020. The Diyarbakır homosexuality” and that this was court again sentenced Raci Bilici to six years “incompatible with Turkey’s social and family and three months’ imprisonment for values”. membership of a terrorist organization. The FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY case was pending on appeal at the end of the year. Police used unnecessary and excessive force In October, human rights defender Mehmet while detaining hundreds of students during Selim Ölçer was sentenced to two years and peaceful assemblies protesting at the one month’s imprisonment for “supporting a presidential appointment of Professor Melih terrorist organization” based on his Bulu as rector of Boğaziçi University. At least membership of the Diyarbakır-based 11 students were remanded in pretrial Sarmaşık Association, a civil society detention and 31 others put under house organization fighting against poverty which arrest, along with hundreds subjected to was closed down by executive decree in judicial controls and prosecutions for violating 2016. the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations. The trial of three police officers and an Seven students faced prosecution on charges alleged member of the armed PKK accused of “inciting the public to enmity and hatred”, of killing human rights lawyer Tahir Elçi and prison sentences of up to three years in continued in Diyarbakır. The officers faced relation to the Boğazici campus exhibition. By charges of gross negligence manslaughter. the year’s end, two students had been remanded in pretrial detention for protesting WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ RIGHTS against the new rector who replaced Melih On 20 March, by presidential decision, Bulu in August. Turkey withdrew from the Council of Europe In March, the trial began of 46 individuals, Convention on combating and preventing including human rights defenders, political violence against women and domestic activists, journalists, and relatives of victims violence (Istanbul Convention), depriving of enforced disappearances dubbed the women and girls of a vital instrument of “Saturday Mothers/People.” The defendants protection from all forms of violence, without faced charges under the Law on Meetings discrimination. The announcement coincided and Demonstrations for refusing to disperse with a surge in domestic violence cases during their 700th weekly vigil on 25 August during the Covid-19 pandemic, and sparked 2018. The case remained pending. countrywide protests. The withdrawal entered Amnesty International Report 2021/22 373