Nisan Alici, Research Assistant NTU
Turkey has a long history of state violence and atrocities, yet it has not initiated an official transitional justice process to address past violence. However, civil society actors have taken up the mantle of demanding truth, justice, and accountability in the absence of a formal transitional justice framework. The Kurdish conflict in Turkey presents a non-paradigmatic case in the transitional justice literature, as there was no transition from conflict to peace when these initiatives took place.
Since the early 2000s, civil society actors in Turkey have been advocating for truth, justice, and memorialization regarding the Kurdish conflict. They have engaged in activities such as documenting human rights violations, organizing commemorative events, and even establishing an unofficial truth commission. Although these initiatives were not explicitly framed under the transitional justice umbrella, they brought forth key themes of truth-recovery, justice, memorialization, and non-recurrence guarantees.
The Truth and Justice Commission for the Diyarbakır Prison
One prominent example of civil society-led efforts in Turkey's Kurdish conflict is the Truth and Justice Commission for the Diyarbakır Prison. The Diyarbakır Military Prison (DMP) was notorious for severe human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment against Kurdish political prisoners following the 1980 military coup. In 2007, a group of activists, supported by academics, lawyers, and psychologists, initiated a process to seek justice, truth, and memorialization.
The commission mimicked official truth commissions in its goals and activities. It collected around 500 testimonies from former prisoners, organised the “Turkey is confronting its past” symposiums to share the commission’s findings with the public, and produced a 7,000 pages long document which revealed the identities of the alleged perpetrators. The symposiums provided a platform for torture survivors to publicly discuss the meaning of what happened to them and were covered widely in the media and facilitated the dissemination of the commission’s findings to the broader society.
The commission's work attracted government and public attention, leading to recognition of the prison's legacy and acknowledgement of the human rights violations committed there. However, disagreements arose regarding the memorialization demands, with the government proposing to demolish the prison rather than create a memorial museum. Nonetheless, the commission's efforts resulted in criminal investigations, the revelation of alleged perpetrators, and the establishment of a parliamentary sub-commission to investigate the prison's atrocities.
Justice-seeking was another issue the commission addressed. With the help of the data the commission collected, 310 ex-prisoners filed a criminal complaint to Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in 2010. The commission activists made a press statement on behalf of the applicants. They demanded that the human rights violations committed in the DMP should be treated as crimes against humanity, and the perpetrators should be punished accordingly. Following that day, a criminal investigation started, and the number of applicants had risen to 1,000 by 2012 (SABAH, 2012).
Calls for justice went hand-in-hand with truth recovery and memorialisation demands. The commission activists expressed the need for a parliamentary investigative commission. They emphasised that the truth behind the DMP is critical for Turkey to deal with the past, and they renewed the call to transform the prison into a human rights museum. The commission released its final report in 2012 and revealed the identities of the military officers who were alleged to be the perpetrators of torture. The report also documented the physical and psychological impact of torture on the prisoners. The commission’s efforts paved the way for a parliamentary sub-commission to be established in 2015 under the Human Rights Inquiry Committee to investigate the human rights violations committed in the DMP.
It was the first time that the DMP was subject to an official public investigation. The proposal for the commission included commitments to dealing with the past, supporting reparations for the torture survivors, and truth recovery. The commission prepared a fifty-page report, but it has never been shared publicly. When the government decided to call for an early election in 2018, the work of parliamentary commissions was put on hold. By then, the launch of the report was also suspended. The head of the commission stated that the report is still held in the archives of the Human Rights Inquiry Committee in the parliament, and it could be shared with the public if there is a favourable political climate.
The Truth and Justice Commission for the Diyarbakır Prison is a vivid example of how civil society actors mobilised transitional justice objectives, initiated a process to deliver these objectives, and enabled several official processes to follow. Those processes did not result in long-term policy changes. However, they allowed the human rights violations to be recorded by official bodies and created a public discussion around the issues that had been long neglected. The commission also played an essential role in bringing together the torture survivors with experts and civil society practitioners and initiating a judicial process and a parliamentary inquiry.
Civil society actors in Turkey's Kurdish conflict have demonstrated how bottom-up transitional justice initiatives can strive for justice and truth even in the absence of formal mechanisms. Their efforts have allowed human rights violations to be documented and have facilitated discussions around neglected issues. Despite the challenges faced, these initiatives have paved the way for official processes and contributed to the overall discourse on transitional justice in Turkey. By leveraging the experiences and lessons learned, the case of Turkey's Kurdish conflict can enhance our understanding of transitional justice processes during ongoing conflicts and authoritarian regimes.
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