EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This report aims to provide an answer to the key questions addressed to the Turkey Tribunal about torture. These questions are: Who are the targeted groups? What is the purpose and the motivation of the perpetrators? Is there a pattern in the way torture is inflicted? Is it being used systematically? Is it an organised practice? Is torture tolerated within the security system itself and what is the involvement at the central governmental level?

International legislation:
Binding international regulations, which are directly applicable in the Turkish legal order, prohibit the government, without exception, from torturing someone, or treating or punishing someone in an inhumane or degrading manner. These international regulations also mean that all necessary steps must be taken to prevent such behavior, even if it involves non-state personnel. Any such behavior must be detected, investigated thoroughly and must be punished with sufficiently long prison sentences. Even though the burden of proof lies with the victim, if the victim can indicate a reasonable suspicion that he or she has been subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment while deprived of his
or her liberty, the government will have to provide evidence to the contrary.

According to the official statistics of the ECtHR, after Russia, Turkey has the most judgments in which a violation of art. 3 ECHR is ruled. In total, from 1991 until the end of May 2020, 620 cases concerning art. 3 ECHR have been decided. In 441 cases (71.1%) a violation was found.

Brief history of the use of torture
The coup d’état of 1980 was followed by a period of generalised use of brutal torture. In the 1990s, the CPT and the UN Committee published their reports, this was clearly and critically pointed out. Without any doubt, in the 1990s, violence and torture are a widely used feature of the Turkish police and security forces.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, positive legislative changes were made. In 2003, the new Erdogan government officially declared that it will apply a “zero tolerance policy towards torture”. A number of publications by international bodies report an improvement in the situation in that first decade of the twenty-first century, and also mention that when torture occurs, it is less violent. These evolutions do not prevent the continued strong presence of torture in relation to the PKK and other extreme left-wing (Kurdish) organisations, certainly linked to violent confrontations and to the presence of the state of emergency in some regions.

However, in the last ten years there has been an intensive resurgence of torture. Figures on the exact number of cases of torture are not clear. Based on official statistics we can state, albeit with considerable caution, that around 3,000 complaints of torture are filed per year on average. A maximum of 1% of the complaints lead to imprisonment (and this estimate is most probably high), and the chance that the perpetrators will be punished with sufficiently severe imprisonment, is nearly nonexistent…