Turning Hagia Sophia to a mosque symbolizes not the death of secularism but the total control of religion by the state. Religion has become the ideological apparatus of the state. Hegemony over religion removed all the barriers for the Turkish nationalist establishment for the implementation of authoritarian policies of the state.

Many believe that Trump’s possible defeat in the November election would be a serious loss for Turkey. Yet, in contrary to the prevalent mood and expectations, Biden’s election may not be as bad as some fears for Turkey, if Erdogan acts cautiously. Given the relative stability in bilateral relations, Joe Biden’s initial preference might be maintaining this course of ties with the US' unwieldy NATO partner.

The strained relations with the Western countries and their suspicions concerning the true face of the coup attempt led to belated support for the Turkish government against the putschists. But there has been only one outlier country in this broad picture all the while: the United Kingdom (UK). The UK has become one of the strongest allies of Erdoğan after the July 15 coup attempt.

on July 15, 2016, a coup attempt took place. Erdogan called the riddling coup “a gift from God”. Immediately after, he declared a state of emergency, by-passed the parliament and turned the political system into a one-man rule.

In the new era, Turkey’s increasing detachment from the West underscores a major shift in Ankara’s strategic thinking. With the Eurasianist ideology increasingly emboldened in foreign policy decision-making, Turkey’s relations with the West have grown more strained, and anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among the country’s ruling elite has dramatically ramped up.

Aesop’s fable is quite relevant also in understanding the events of the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016. So far, a one-sided official narrative has dominated the scene and many people bought this version at face value without feeling the need to check its reliability.

'A gift from God' was one of Erdoğan's first descriptions related to coup attempt in July 15. At first no one realized that God's gift meant a chaotic environment in which he needed to declare a national emergency with no checks and balances and then transform Türkiye’s parliamentary democracy into an executive presidency.

This submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) highlights severe issues undermining the integrity of Türkiye's judiciary, particularly focusing on rampant judicial corruption and impunity as well as human rights abuses which they facilitate. Based on the most recent incidents of corruption concerning members of the judiciary who serve in courts in Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, this report seeks to examine the high-level corruption within the judiciary and the Turkish government’s failure or even willful ignorance in addressing it.

This report focuses on Turkey's prominence as an emerging market for cocaine trafficking and organized crime in the last decade. Cocaine production in Latin America has dramatically increased since 2013, and Turkey’s status as an emerging market has attracted the attention of Latin American government officials on the front lines of the cocaine trade.

This report sets out to provide a comprehensive analysis of the tactics employed by the Erdoğan administration to achieve repressive goals abroad and the vulnerabilities and how they are enabled by the AML and CFT regulation in place.

This submission highlights the ongoing systematic actions and omissions by Turkish authorities against the so-called members of the Gulen Group, framed as crimes against humanity. It demonstrates the violations of recommendations that even Türkiye has supported.

This report offers an update to the United Nations Committee against Torture (the Committee) regarding the obstacles to implementing the Convention against Torture (the Convention) in Turkey. As a coalition formed by a collective of former Turkish diplomats, our focus is on the systematic torture faced by former diplomats detained at Ankara Police Headquarters. We delve into the Turkish context and present insights from our organization.