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Nisan Alici, Learning from Civil Society Actors in Turkey: Using Transitional Justice in an Ongoing Conflict, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Volume 18, Issue 2, July 2024, Pages 250–266, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijae015
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ABSTRACT∞
This article examines the role of civil society in the implementation of transitional justice in Turkey’s ongoing Kurdish conflict, which is characterized by historical state violence and a lack of official transitional justice processes. Drawing on 24 interviews, the research reveals the evolution of civil society engagement from its peak during the 2013–2015 peace process to its decline under increasing authoritarianism. The research argues that, despite challenges, civil society retains the potential to drive incremental change in the absence of formal transitional justice mechanisms. However, the authoritarian regime has significantly curtailed its capacity, creating a limited civic space for transitional justice. The article highlights the need for stronger links between civil society in Turkey and international transitional justice scholarship. Such collaboration could empower activists, enabling them to overcome challenges and increase their effectiveness. Turkey offers a unique case for transitional justice scholars and practitioners to learn from civil society actors committed to pursuing justice.
INTRODUCTION
Turkey has a long history of state violence and atrocities against its people, particularly the Kurdish population. The decades-long armed conflict between the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the Turkish armed forces has led to significant loss of life and has had a profound impact on the affected regions. Despite the urgent need for transitional justice to address human rights violations and seek accountability for state violence, Turkey has never had an official transitional justice process to address past violence. Civil society actors mobilized to demand truth, justice and accountability in the absence of an overarching transitional justice framework. Their work gained momentum in the early 2000s and peaked during the 2013–2015 peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK.1 However, following the collapse of the peace process, these efforts gradually faded and were eventually silenced by increasing authoritarianism. As state violence and human rights violations continue in the current context of ongoing Kurdish conflict and authoritarian rule, effectively dealing with the past has become an increasingly challenging task. As a result, its prominence on the civil society agenda has declined significantly from its previous high visibility.
Drawing on 24 interviews with civil society actors, this article examines the role of civil society actors in using transitional justice in relation to Turkey’s Kurdish conflict in the absence of a peace process and in an increasingly authoritarian context. The Kurdish conflict offers a unique opportunity to explore civil society mobilization for transitional justice when a formal transition seems unlikely. With no official transitional justice process, but a myriad of grassroots activities, Turkey is a valuable case study for expanding our understanding of ‘transitional justice in non-transitions.’2 The article makes three key arguments. First, even without an official transitional justice agenda, civil society actors hold a solid potential to stimulate transformation and implement transitional justice mechanisms, at least in incremental steps. The work of the unofficial Diyarbakır Prison Truth and Justice Commission is an example of this potential. Second, the authoritarian regime’s human rights violations have drastically reduced civil society’s capacity to imagine how to pursue and achieve transitional justice goals. Despite a wealth of experience and widespread grassroots efforts in the absence of an official transitional justice agenda, there has been a decline in interest in transitional justice, leading to a limited and inert transitional justice civic space. Third, it is imperative to establish a robust connection between civil society actors in Turkey and international transitional justice scholarship and practice. This connection can provide civil society with greater engagement with established transitional justice literature and practices, empowering activists to overcome existing challenges and increasing their effectiveness in achieving their goals. The transitional justice scholarship, in return, should devote more attention to ongoing conflict cases, such as Turkey, where the social and political landscape is shaped by an authoritarian regime. As authoritarian regimes proliferate around the world, there is a growing need for transitional justice literature to address the complexities faced by civil society actors in pursuing ‘transitional justice in non-transitions.’3
The article begins by analysing the key frontiers in the growing literature on transitional justice in ongoing conflicts. It then describes the current political context in Turkey, characterized by the ongoing Kurdish conflict and authoritarianism. This is followed by an overview of the use of transitional justice in Turkey to date, demonstrating the vibrancy of civil society’s past transitional justice activities. To gain a deeper understanding of their past transitional justice engagement, this section also explores one of the most critical developments in the 2000s: the civil society-led truth project the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison. This unofficial commission is highly important because it shows how civil society-led initiatives can contribute to truth, justice and memorialization during an ongoing conflict and prompt change at the grassroots and official levels. This section is followed by an overview of the research methods. The next section examines how civil society actors perceive and conceptualize transition and transitional justice in the context of an ongoing conflict and an authoritarian regime. This section draws specifically on my findings from the interviews and analyses the challenges these actors currently face. The article concludes by arguing that Turkey has a wealth of experience that could prove helpful when political conditions become more conducive to the implementation of a fully-fledged set of transitional justice mechanisms. It also reflects on the field of transitional justice more generally and concludes that in authoritarian contexts where peace is not seen as an achievable goal in the foreseeable future, the scope for meaningful implementation of transitional justice is truly limited.
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN ONGOING CONFLICTS
Although transitional justice has traditionally been used in postconflict settings, several scholars have investigated its potential use in the context of ongoing conflicts and its potential to facilitate conflict transformation.4 This is still an evolving area, and the existing literature does not fully capture settings where there are different phases and degrees of transition, and where the conflict and widespread human rights violations have not ended.5 Therefore, a differentiated approach is needed to analyse the potential and challenges of implementing transitional justice in ongoing conflicts and authoritarian regimes. This is especially important given the current rise of authoritarian regimes on a global scale.6 The Turkish-Kurdish case is perfectly placed to add substance to this differentiated approach.
The mechanisms of transitional justice were originally developed for postconflict or post-authoritarian settings, and transitional justice interventions were initially conceived as coming ‘after evil.’7 While it is generally assumed that transitional justice mechanisms are applied in postconflict transitions, the possibility of implementing transitional justice in the absence of a clear-cut transition, when the conflict is still ongoing and society is deeply conflicted, has also gained some traction.8 It is increasingly accepted that transitional justice is now used in ongoing conflicts or widespread human rights violations, and it is no longer tied to an exclusive period.9 Attempts to deal with a violent past after a transition from war to peace or from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one are being supplanted by attempts to ensure accountability for atrocities even before a political settlement takes place.10
Transitions often take place over a long period of time;11 indeed, all states are constantly in transition at varying paces.12 The blurred lines between peace and conflict in contemporary conflicts also influence transitional justice, which has been increasingly used when the transition is unclear, vulnerable or even non-existent.13 As Sarkin proposes, the scope of transitional justice should expand beyond post-transition and post-crisis periods, rather than waiting for an end to conflict or human rights violations.14 It has been argued that transitional justice can facilitate the end of a conflict by transforming social relations in protracted conflicts where violence is deeply embedded in people’s daily lives.15 Even limited attempts could be beneficial for peaceful transformation in countries where there is no transition.16 Transitional justice can promote dialogue, support reconciliation, promote social cohesion and nation-building, provide redress and achieve guarantees of non-repetition, which would ultimately lead to peace.17
Revising the normative transitional justice framework, Hansen conceptualizes variations in transitional justice cases in fundamental political transitions and non-transitions. He further distinguishes between these two categories. Within the category of ‘transitional justice in non-transitions,’ he defines a subcategory of ‘transitional justice in deeply conflicted societies.’ Colombia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda are among the countries where several transitional justice measures have been implemented in fragile and deeply conflicted societies without a fundamental political transition. Referring to the Colombian transitional justice process, launched in 2005 in the absence of a peace process, Hansen demonstrates that even in the absence of a transition, a degree of justice can be achieved while seeking to limit armed conflict. Turkey can be viewed in a similar way, given that no fundamental political transformation or regime change has taken place, but some transitional justice initiatives have occurred. Thus, I follow Hansen’s category of ‘transitional justice in deeply conflicted societies’ in nontransitions to situate Turkey within the field of transitional justice. In cases where there is no fundamental political transition and society remains conflicted, expectations about what transitional justice could achieve should be realistic.18 My interlocutors were realistic in their aspirations and acknowledged the limitations of the current context, while also highlighting the potential value of transitional justice activities in the absence of a peace agreement or official transitional justice strategy. The next section provides a picture of the transitional justice initiatives to date.
THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL LANDSCAPE: UNPACKING THE KURDISH CONFLICT AND ITS INTERSECTION WITH AUTHORITARIANISM
The Kurdish conflict is one of the longest-lasting armed conflicts19 and has its roots in the history of the Turkish Republic, which was founded in 1923 as a nation-state with the ambition of creating a homogenous Turkish identity.20 The Kurds were the largest non-Turkish group with a distinct culture and language.21 Arguably, that is why the founders of the Turkish Republic sought to eliminate Kurdish identity and Turkify the Kurds through various assimilationist tools. Forced assimilation and structural efforts to abolish Kurdish cultural identity led to the onset of the armed conflict in 1984, with the PKK’s first attack against the Turkish security forces. The armed conflict is therefore a manifestation of the ‘systematic denial and degradation of Kurds.’22
During the armed conflict, the military and state-led paramilitaries used widespread violence against civilians in Kurdish-populated areas under a state of emergency from 1987 to 2002, causing 40,000 deaths and the displacement of millions.23 In collaboration with paramilitary and extremist groups and intelligence services, the Special Forces (Özel Timler) targeted numerous Kurdish intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians while instilling fear in the population at large.24
In the early 2000s, the newly elected AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) made some efforts as part of Turkey’s quest for EU membership.25 The government passed several reform packages aiming at lifting the ban on public and private Kurdish-language broadcasting, with the explicit intention of addressing past injustices.26 In 2012, a parliamentary commission was established to investigate military coups and disclose a range of human rights violations, with a focus on the 1980 coup.
The prime minister’s apology for the Dersim Massacre was also among those efforts. The Dersim Massacre (1937–1938) refers to a military operation that resulted in the deaths of some 14,000 civilians and the forced displacement of 12,000 people, the majority of whom were Kurdish-Alevis.27 Official discourse saw the massacre as the state’s legitimate self-defence against an uprising.28 However, in 2009, Erdoğan explicitly referred to the ‘Dersim Massacre’ in a parliamentary speech, symbolizing a paradigm shift in the official narrative.29 ‘The silence about Dersim cracked at the official level,’30 which led to a vivid public debate.31
After a number of unsuccessful negotiation attempts during the armed conflict,32 state delegations and the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, Peace and Democracy Party) initiated the peace process in January 2013, generating high expectations with various social, political and legal mechanisms.33 Simultaneously, civil society’s interest in transitional justice peaked, sparking debates on different approaches to transitional justice.34 Discourse around dealing with the past became commonplace, and key issues such as truth recovery, justice, memorialization and guarantees of nonrecurrence began to emerge. However, the government failed to provide a critical account of the past or to initiate a comprehensive process to deal with the past.35 The limited official attempts were pragmatic manoeuvres without genuine commitment to long-term political transformation. In summer 2015, the peace process collapsed due to its highly fragile framework. This was followed by a period of escalated violence in the Kurdish region. This period coincided with major steps towards authoritarianism that paved the way for Turkey’s current political dynamics.36
The critical turning points shaping Turkey’s current authoritarian regime include the June 2015 parliamentary elections, the July 2016 military coup attempt and the April 2017 presidential referendum.37 In the 2015 elections, the pro-Kurdish HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, Peoples’ Democratic Party) passed the 10 percent electoral threshold, becoming the second-largest opposition party and disrupting the AKP’s long-held parliamentary majority.38 This implied the end of the AKP’s hegemony.39 In response, Erdoğan called early elections for November 2015 and simultaneously initiated a new phase of war against the PKK.40
Between the two elections, the HDP and pro-Kurdish activists faced a period of intense violence, while the Kurdish region experienced an eruption of war between state security forces and the PKK.41 Taking advantage of the deliberately created atmosphere of fear and violence, Erdoğan argued that electing his party was the only way to ensure security and stability.42 This discourse proved useful, and the AKP’s vote increased again in the November elections, giving it the majority it needed to form a single-party government. Summer 2015 marked the end of the search for a political resolution of the conflict, and the Kurdish issue ‘once again turned into a question of security, order, sovereignty and confrontation of two armed forces.’43
The winter of 2015–2016 was the peak of the death toll in the armed conflict. The rapid escalation of violence and the shift from rural to urban warfare resulted in months-long blanket curfews in the Kurdish region and a heavy military presence,44 resulting in civilian deaths and forced displacement.45 Subsequently, a failed coup in July 2016 prompted a two-year state of emergency, enabling the government to extend its powers, impose a crackdown on human rights and arrest dissidents, primarily from the Kurdish political movement.46 Exploiting the suspended freedoms, Erdoğan orchestrated a referendum in April 2017 that facilitated a constitutional amendment shifting to an executive presidential system, concentrating power in the presidency and undermining checks and balances.47 In the June 2018 elections, he was elected as the first president under the new system, marking the culmination of the AKP’s pursuit of full state control and a transformation towards authoritarianism.48 The resecuritization of the Kurdish region and the nationwide crackdown during the state of emergency resulted in a shrinkage of civic space, criminalizing and rendering invisible demands for truth, justice and accountability for conflict-related human rights violations.49
Perhaps due to the lack of a conflict resolution and therefore an official transitional justice process, Turkey has not attracted much attention in the field of transitional justice. Civil society-led initiatives related to the Kurdish conflict have largely fallen off the international radar and have not been the subject of extensive analysis. For example, despite an increasing scholarly interest in unofficial truth commissions,50 which are useful when the political context does not allow for an official truth commission,51 the unofficial Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison has not gained traction among transitional justice scholars. This lack of interest is striking given that this civil society initiative took the lead of a process to deliver the transitional justice objectives and demonstrated how civil society can pursue transitional justice objectives in the absence of an official or nationwide transitional justice framework. This reflects a gap in the transitional justice literature where transitional justice without a fundamental political change has not been central enough to shape the field.52 The next section unveils this gap while situating Turkey within the literature that investigates the potential for using transitional justice in settings where there is no transition.
CIVIL SOCIETY’S QUEST FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE IN THE ABSENCE OF AN OFFICIAL TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE PROCESS
Despite the various atrocities, military coups and widespread human rights violations that have marked Turkey’s history, no official transitional justice process has been adopted to deal with past atrocities. The combination of denial and impunity for conflict-related human rights violations resulted in a lack of justice and accountability.53 As of the early 2000s, also the early years of the AKP rule, when the government welcomed and, at least superficially, adopted a discourse of dealing with past crimes, demands for truth, justice and memorialization started gaining more popularity among civil society actors, including victims’ groups.54
Grassroots movements focused on truth seeking, memorialization and public acknowledgement of past atrocities. They engaged intensively in organizing commemorative events, making calls for accountability for past crimes and organizing public events to discuss ways of dealing with the past, including a potential truth commission. For instance, in December 2008, several intellectuals publicly apologized for the ‘Great Catastrophe’ of 1915 (referring to the Armenian Genocide) through the ‘I Apologise’ Campaign and launched a petition that had attracted 31,045 signatories by March 2012. Another example was in 2010, when a group of activists established a temporary Museum of Shame to commemorate the human rights violations committed following the 1980 military coup.55 All of these initiatives took place during the ongoing armed conflict, and although they were not explicitly framed under the transitional justice umbrella, they brought forth key pillars of transitional justice such as truth recovery, justice, memorialization and guarantees of nonrecurrence.56,57
The Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison emerged in this context in 2008 and continued its work until 2012. This unofficial, civil society-led truth commission demonstrates a proactive approach to achieving justice and truth without relying on the state. This serves as a concrete example of how transitional justice can even be pursued, to some extent, in an ongoing conflict. We need to analyse and understand this achievement not only because it demonstrates civil society’s eagerness to take the lead in dealing with the past in the absence of a peace process but also because it occurred during a period more conducive to such efforts, contrasting with the current authoritarian context. The next section delves into this truth commission’s accomplishments, highlighting the contrast between the active involvement of civil society in transitional justice in the past, which was able to bring about changes at the parliamentary, governmental and judicial levels, and the limited space for such engagement in the present.
Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison
On the 27th anniversary of the military coup of 12 September 1980, the 78’ers Initiative, together with a group of activists, academics, lawyers, human rights defenders and psychologists, established the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison (the ‘Commission’).58 The Commission was the first instance of a specific tool for transitional justice in Turkey, aiming at ‘facing the truth’ as the initial step towards democratization and conflict resolution.59 In this section, I unveil how the work of the Commission incited responses from the public and official bodies.
Diyarbakir Military Prison (DMP) was infamous for severe human rights violations, including sexualized torture against Kurdish political prisoners after the 1980 coup.60 Due to its role in radicalizing large numbers of Kurds, the prison holds a key place in Kurdish collective memory and resistance.61 Commission members expressed that what happened in the DMP contributed significantly to the ongoing conflict, explicitly highlighting that many ex-prisoners ‘went to the mountain’ to join the PKK.62 They also noted that in the rest of Turkey, there was not much knowledge about what happened in the prison and its consequences.63 Therefore, they aimed to initiate a judicial process for human rights violations, reveal the truth, confront the past and transform the DMP into a museum.64 The Commission declared itself the first and only unofficial truth commission and mimicked official truth commissions in its goals and activities.65 The following speech by the 78’ers Initiative demonstrates that the activists were deliberate in their attempt to create a truth commission inspired by international examples:
The Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison is a civil society movement. It is not a judicial body at all. Truth commissions have been established under different names all over the world in countries where military coups have occurred. Its aim is not to take revenge but to ensure that the law’s goal is achieved, and that justice is done by revealing the truth. It will be one of the founding stones on the way towards peace by healing the trauma created during that period. Trauma makes people mute. Our commission aims to create an atmosphere in which victims can be unmuted and reestablish their voice.66
The Commission’s activities were modelled on the work of official truth commissions, where truth seeking is a major component. It collected testimonies from nearly 500 ex-prisoners and produced a 7,000-page document.67 In 2012, it published a final report detailing the impact of systematic torture on prisoners and revealing the identities of military officers implicated as perpetrators.68 The Commission disseminated its findings through a series of symposia across the country entitled ‘Turkey Is Confronting Its Past.’69 These events responded to a problem identified by the Commission: that society knew little about the human rights violations committed in the DMP. By bringing together former prisoners with politicians, activists, journalists and academics, they played a critical role in bringing the survivors’ experiences into public knowledge.70
In its final report, the Commission declared its commitment to campaigning for a parliamentary truth commission.71 In 2015, with the help of the atmosphere created by the peace process, a Parliamentary Investigative Subcommission was established under the Human Rights Inquiry Committee, marking the first official inquiry into the DMP. The Subcommission committed to certain transitional justice goals, such as developing reparative justice mechanisms for victims and addressing past trauma and suffering.72 It also committed to publishing its findings in a comprehensive report.73 This was a remarkable development, with political parties from across the political spectrum supporting these goals, albeit without explicit reference to transitional justice.74 The Subcommission emerged in a landscape where discourse on dealing with the past remained prevalent. The Subcommission emphasized the need for a genuine confrontation with the DMP to understand the roots of the Kurdish conflict’s turn to ‘terror and violence.’75 Framing the issue in the context of the ‘terrorism problem’ provided the Subcommission with legitimate support. Moreover, the DMP was a product of the 1980 coup, and the political parties, including the AKP, had a firm position against military coups.
The Subcommission heard torture survivors’ testimonies until September 2017. When the government called early elections in 2018, the work of the Subcommission was put on hold. Although the report was completed, its release was suspended. A 50-page report remains in the Human Rights Inquiry Committee’s archives and could be made public in a favourable political climate.76 The inaccessibility of the report raises questions about the effectiveness of the Subcommission and its impact on addressing historical issues. The failure to transform its findings into public information diminishes its usefulness. Nevertheless, the formation and launch of the Subcommission within the parliamentary framework, along with the specification of transitional justice objectives, underscores its importance.
The Commission’s truth-seeking work opened avenues of justice for victims. Based on the data collected, 310 former prisoners filed criminal complaints in 2010. Commission members, speaking on behalf of the applicants, demanded that human rights violations in the DMP be treated as crimes against humanity.77 This led to an unprecedented attempt to hold perpetrators accountable, and a criminal case was opened to investigate the period 1980–1988 in the DMP, with the number of applicants reaching 1,000 by 2012.78 However, the investigation was closed in 2014 because of the statute of limitations.79 Ultimately, the efforts for justice were in vain, as no one was held accountable.
The Commission also focused on memorialization, launching a campaign in 2009 to turn the prison into a human rights museum, which gathered 100,000 signatures by 2013.80 While the campaign was underway, Erdoğan, in a groundbreaking acknowledgement of the DMP’s legacy, announced plans to replace the old prison to erase the memory of the 1980 coup.81 His approach to memory contradicted the demands of grassroots actors for a memory site. More recently, in 2021, Erdoğan suggested turning the DMP into a cultural centre, evoking mixed reactions – some saw it as a step towards addressing the past, while others viewed it as an attempt to erase memory.82
Grassroots truth projects, such as the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison, can serve as powerful alternatives in contexts where political constraints do not allow for official truth commissions.83 Such grassroots initiatives that challenge the ‘amnesiac tendencies’ of governments are of great importance in countries lacking meaningful accountability or transitional justice processes.84 The work of the Commission on truth, justice and memory pillars enabled the official recognition of human rights violations in the DMP in an unprecedented manner. The campaign succeeded in sparking a vibrant public discourse and prompting official action, thus amplifying the potential of civil society-led truth projects to challenge state policies of denial and impunity. However, the initially expanded space gradually diminished, and despite the vocal civil society campaign, the demands remained unfulfilled.
METHODOLOGY
To understand the perspectives, conceptualizations and experiences of a broad range of actors, I conducted 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews in 2019 and 2020. Eleven of these were conducted in person in Istanbul, while 13 interviews were conducted online with Diyarbakir-based interlocutors due to pandemic-related restrictions. To enable a broadly representative sample, I selected interviewees from various backgrounds and expertise.85 The selection criterion was to have worked closely with victims of conflict-related human rights violations in Turkey for at least a decade. Among those, there are lawyers who represent victims in national and international courts, practitioners who support victims through different means, human rights advocates who take part in organizing public demonstrations and researchers who document human rights violations and use research as a tool for advocacy. The key themes they tackle in their activities are enforced disappearances, gender-based violence, forced displacement, memory and dealing with the past. Ethical approval for this research was obtained from Ulster University’s Ethics Filter Committee for the School of Law.
Because it was our common language, all interviews were conducted in Turkish. I provided each interviewee with an information sheet in advance and asked for their consent to participate in this research, to be recorded and to be quoted anonymously in related publications. In the interviews, I asked them to elaborate on their understanding of transitional justice, explain their past and current transitional justice-related work and share their views on the value and the possibility of using transitional justice in the ongoing context. Each interview lasted between 45 and 90 minutes and was audio-recorded.
I transcribed and analysed the interviews in Turkish. Using NVivo software, I conducted a thematic analysis, which entailed creating codes based on both the common features (e.g., a concept, argument, strong emphasis or lack of response to a particular question) that came up across different data components and the interview guide. I then coded the data to generate and categorize key themes by identifying commonalities.86 The quotes used in this article are those that support this article’s key arguments based on the coded data. I translated each quote from Turkish to English.
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IMAGINARIES AT PRESENT
More than a decade after the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison concluded its work, the political landscape in Turkey has undergone significant changes, limiting the scope of civil society action. There is a stark contrast between the current political environment in Turkey and the one in which the Commission was established. Although my interlocutors consistently expressed the value of using transitional justice without waiting for an official process, the scope for transitional justice to flourish in an authoritarian environment with an ongoing armed conflict is very limited. This contrast is reflected in my interviews, where civil society actors highlight the need for a proactive civil society stance on transitional justice and describe their potential contribution as a relatively limited groundwork for an official process. This section provides a comprehensive overview of civil society actors’ perspectives and aspirations regarding transitional justice in the changed political context, and an analysis of the challenges they currently face.
Transition as a Bottom-up, Long-Term, Nonlinear Process
My interviews underline a nuanced and broad understanding of transition, which is key to civil society-led transitional justice efforts in Turkey. My interlocutors perceive transition as a long-term, nonlinear process that occurs over a long period of time, rather than at a specific point in time. Therefore, transitional justice should be seen as relevant and valuable before and after a peace agreement. One of the interlocutors noted that there are disruptions in transitional processes:
You cannot transition to peace in one day. It starts, it stops, and then it starts again. Perhaps it will take sixty years. Am I going to wait sixty years to implement transitional justice? I believe that there is a passive position. What we call transition is not necessarily done by others. You are a party to it, and there is a struggle that you lead to make that transition. I can always use transitional justice as part of my struggle to transition.87
This quote shows that the idea of transition as a long-term process comes with the belief that those working towards transitional justice goals should not simply wait for the right moment. They address the need to act rather than wait for the conflict to end. Waiting for the warring parties or political elite to initiate transition undermines the agency of civil society actors and puts them in a passive position. My interlocutors believe that transition could be fought for and initiated by grassroots actors.88 This understanding brings agency forward and simultaneously places responsibility on civil society actors to initiate transitional justice processes. According to this view, transition is not something that others or higher authorities would start, but rather a dynamic terrain for political struggle. This understanding demonstrates a continuum from the period when the Commission was established without an official initiative and purely as a civil society-led mechanism.
Building on a bottom-up and agency-orientated approach, my interlocutors see it as the responsibility of civil society and human rights advocates to take the lead for transitional justice while the conflict is ongoing. An interlocutor who is a human rights advocate sees it as her responsibility to remind the state of its duties and to identify the interventions that are feasible in the given circumstances. While not every transitional justice mechanism is suitable for the current situation, some could be highly beneficial and relatively straightforward to implement.89 Mechanisms that require state involvement, such as an official apology or a historical clarification commission, would not be possible in the current situation. However, civil society-led initiatives can lay the groundwork at the grassroots level through memory work, oral history, documenting and disseminating findings on human rights violations and collecting testimonies, as exemplified by the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison.
For instance, memorialisation is a crucial mechanism offered to me by the transitional justice framework, and there is no obstacle to doing that right now. I do what I can do; I collect what I can collect under today’s circumstances. I cannot make the government apologise, but I can inform people about what an official apology means.90
Transitional Justice as the Groundwork
Transitional justice provides a valuable framework for dealing with the legacies of the past and could play a vital role in resolving Turkey’s Kurdish conflict, a view widely shared by my interlocutors.91 They consider the transitional justice framework to offer a basis for handling a substantial social problem and how it might bring about sustainable resolutions. The transitional justice framework is not perceived as being limited to postconflict transitions but rather as something that grassroots actors should benefit from during conflict. As one interlocutor states:
What we call transitional justice mechanisms offers us a basis for thinking about how to handle a significant social problem to move towards permanent solutions. That is why it is so important. Based on what I know and our discussions, it should not be limited to postconflict transitions.92
Reflecting on what could realistically be achieved given the shrinking civil society in Turkey was a recurring theme in my interviews. Based on the need for a well-prepared civil society to contribute to transitional justice during a peace process, almost all interlocutors expressed that the current period could be used to do groundwork for an official transitional justice process that will start one day. Anything that can be done is seen as infrastructure work that enables civil society actors to get involved actively and meaningfully, and as a foundation for when an official process starts. Although they see the value of initiatives in the current situation, they consider the impact to be limited before the state starts an official process. One interlocutor indicates that in a context where official mechanisms are not employable, ‘every stone we put is meaningful, and every small step counts.’93
Memorialization, documentation, database creation, reporting and research are the most common groundwork activities undertaken by civil society. It is thought that conflict-related human rights violations will become more visible in the future and become a part of the resolution of the Kurdish conflict. Therefore, archival work, documentation, data collection and research are important contributions to transitional justice.94 Similar activities can be seen in other ongoing conflicts. For example, in Syria, the documentation of violations serves as a function of transitional justice and becomes an act of resistance by keeping the justice demands alive.95 Documenting atrocities can be healing in itself ‘as it ensures that victimisation is acknowledged, recorded and remembered.’96 Recording human rights violations and adequately documenting abuses also plays an important role in countering ongoing denial and impunity in Turkey. The data collected could be used in future judicial processes to hold perpetrators accountable. Where it is not possible to pursue justice through domestic mechanisms, this data could also be used to make a case in international human rights mechanisms, such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
For example, during the 2015–2016 curfews, the authorities prevented national and international human rights organizations from entering the curfew regions to document mass abuses against civilians.97 One of my interlocutors explained that all entrances and exits to the areas were closed. With no possibility of conducting in-person fieldwork, they collected the investigation files and created a database. The analysis based on the database was used for an application for an injunction, which was examined by the ECtHR.98
Transitional Justice as a Precondition for Peace
The civil society organizations I have discussed so far have often called for peace to be accompanied by justice. This means that peace can only be just, honourable and meaningful if it incorporates justice mechanisms. Therefore, a peace process without accompanying transitional justice mechanisms would be widely viewed as illegitimate by my interlocutors. A concrete commitment to justice and accountability is needed to establish legitimacy and public trust in a peace process in the eyes of the Kurdish population. At this point, transitional justice becomes relevant and important in linking a potential peace process to the need for justice:
Honestly, I do not think it will work like peacebuilding first and then transitional justice in Kurdistan. First, there need to be some steps. Some level of confronting the past, or perhaps truth commissions, as you mentioned. Some things like that should happen so that peacebuilding can occur that people can believe and trust. So … if there is a desire for sustainable peace in Kurdistan, I believe that certain things related to transitional justice should occur before a peace table is established.99
Similarly, a Diyarbakir-based lawyer emphasizes the need for simultaneously implementing justice and peace initiatives because both are needed, and one cannot exist without the other. He elaborates that during the collapsed peace process, the justice dimension was left aside, which caused the process to fail to provide a healthy ground for peace:
I don’t think we can prioritize one over the other. They go in an interlinked manner. I mean, if there is only peace, there will be no justice. Or peace won’t come if there is only justice. When there is a will to bring justice and peace, they will develop together … Justice and peace must be delivered together. They are not independent or separate.100
In accordance with this quote, for my interlocutors, transitional justice is essential not only as a complementary set of postconflict measures, but more importantly as a tool to guarantee the efficiency of a peace process. It is widely believed that implementing transitional justice mechanisms ensures genuine willingness on the conflict parties’ side to build a sustainable peace, which requires accountability measures to be put in place. This demonstrates and supports the view that transitional justice is not something that should come after the end of a conflict but can be integrated into peace efforts.
Challenges to Transitional Justice Imaginaries
Civil society actors in Turkey have been working diligently towards transitional justice goals for many years. They have a detailed and first-hand understanding of victims’ demands for justice, truth and accountability. However, several challenges constrain their transitional justice imaginaries. I group these challenges into two interconnected areas: the first concerns limited knowledge of and links to the established transitional justice field and practice, and the second concerns the constraining effects of ongoing conflict and authoritarianism.
The first challenge is that there is limited knowledge relating to the ‘state of the field’ and of transitional justice as a field of academic interdisciplinary inquiry. Despite various actors having voiced demands for specific transitional justice mechanisms, there has been relatively little realization on the ground. The majority of my interlocutors who do not work directly on transitional justice indicate that they are familiar with the term transitional justice but not so much with the specifics.101 Those who were more familiar with transitional justice know primarily about certain aspects that seem relevant to their work, such as truth commissions, but did not have a broader understanding of how different mechanisms and approaches might interact. The result is a civic space that vocalizes transitional justice goals on an abstract level but does not afford adequate thought to the specific tools and mechanisms that might be most appropriate for the current Turkish-Kurdish context. Establishing links with the international transitional justice field can pave the way for novel and in-depth suggestions for what can be meaningful and achievable in specific and tangible terms.
The second challenge relates to the complex picture of the entrenched intersection of armed conflict and authoritarianism. Peace is one of the riskiest issues to be vocal about, and seeking justice and accountability for conflict-related abuses is equally challenging. As in many other contexts, state surveillance and repression often target peace activists, who are also the main actors or pioneers of any transitional justice attempt. The oppressive and authoritarian regime has also limited the ability to act freely in a politically sensitive field. Although almost all participants agree that implementing transitional justice during the conflict is essential and meaningful, there is little room for imagination and creativity in thinking about how transitional justice could be applied within the Turkish context. They usually refer to it only as a ‘preparation’ process with limited scope; effectively a precursor to a state-led official process. This is hugely important and distinctive to Turkey, where civil society actors’ transitional justice perception presently focuses on preparing the way for the state to build peace, rather than ending impunity, injustice or lack of accountability for past crimes.
Therefore, there is a gap between past and present civil society engagement with transitional justice. As evident from the Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison, although the conflict was ongoing in the early 2000s, the discourse on dealing with the past was more visible and audible, and many more activities focused on dealing with the past. For example, in 2007, Diyarbakir Bar Association organized a conference entitled ‘Dealing with the Past for Truth, Justice and Peace.’ There was also a high level of interest in international experiences. Prominent international figures, including Alex Boraine (former Deputy Chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission), attended the conference along with other guest speakers from Chile, South Africa and Ireland. Interestingly, much of this past experience seems to have been forgotten, and my interviews do not reflect this wealth of experience or similar exchanges. Peace- and transitional justice-related topics have received much less attention in recent years, and most people who were involved in these areas of human rights work remember those days as a distant past.102 It shows the extent to which the authoritarian regime has distorted the perception and imagination of civil society, limiting its capacity to think outside the current setting.
There is also a personal dimension to the inability to think creatively about transitional justice, which is related to survival needs. Many activists have faced personal safety concerns; some have been imprisoned or dismissed from their jobs. My interlocutor, a prominent human rights advocate, tells me about the activities planned by her association. They wanted to work on collective trauma and establish an independent institute to work on human rights and trauma. After contacting potential partners from abroad, they had to put it on hold due to the challenges they have faced in recent years. She has been involved in human rights work for decades and has recently faced increasing political pressure. She highlights the psychological impact of dealing with an oppressive regime:
I was supposed to work on this project. But the last two to three years went by in such a chaotic way, we lost our ability to dream. This is the enormous damage that these men have done. Myself, for example, because of anxiety, I lost the ability to work and think deeply about something. It will be hard to get that back.103
Under these conditions, it is challenging and, at times, impossible to think ahead and work towards something that may only produce outcomes in a distant, unpredictable future. While there is silence from the state and a criminalizing and punitive approach to disruptive voices, civil society actors are limited in what they can achieve. Even though my interlocutors consistently address the importance of a bottom-up approach to transitional justice and the need to take the initiative without waiting for a top-down process, the reality is that they do not have much space to act under oppressive rule. Therefore, there is truly limited room for transitional justice to be meaningfully implemented in such authoritarian contexts where peace is not seen as an achievable goal in the near future.
CONCLUSION: EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF TRANSITONAL JUSTICE
The article illustrates that civil society actors in Turkey acknowledge the significance and relevance of transitional justice despite operating within a challenging political environment. They view it as an essential component of their role as human rights advocates. The article highlights an apparent discrepancy between civil society’s current commitment to transitional justice and the vigour of their previous transitional justice efforts, when the government exhibited greater willingness to address the past, albeit in a superficial and pragmatic manner. My interlocutors do not exhibit the same level of enthusiasm that they may have shown a decade ago. The implementation of transitional justice mechanisms has become less prominent in civil society due to the political regime’s increasing restrictions on democratic processes, resulting in a reduced likelihood of achieving peace.
The article underscores this contrast and stresses the importance of bridging the gap between what is deemed necessary and achievable and what is currently being done. This gap can be bridged by linking transitional justice practice in Turkey with global transitional justice debates and scholarship. Greater engagement with transitional justice scholarship and practice might equip civil society actors with innovative means of overcoming the obstacles presented by the intersection of authoritarianism and ongoing conflict. Activists, practitioners, lawyers and victims’ movements can build on their existing experience in mobilizing transitional justice goals to work towards ending conflict. By connecting this wealth of experience and lessons learned from previous transitional justice initiatives to the current situation, they can increase their effectiveness and capacity. By actively engaging with the existing literature and practical knowledge within their area of expertise, they have the potential to strengthen their ability to pursue their objectives with greater success.
As the interviews suggest, they can use the current situation as an opportunity to establish themselves as competent practitioners and enhance capacity building regarding transitional justice. They can then take the lead when the political situation allows more space for transitional justice. The current period could be used to lay some groundwork for official mechanisms, to build the relevant infrastructure and to ensure a common agenda. This agenda could entail what should be done without state involvement and deliver a roadmap to inform an official process. To build a bottom-up transitional justice process, as my interlocutors aspire to do, grassroots actors need to be better equipped and deliberately build upon what has been achieved. Learning from other experiences can enhance their ability to develop new ideas and merge them with existing experiences to ensure the most effective long-term transitional justice approach.
The article stressed the need to tackle the challenges confronting civil society actors in nontransitional settings, particularly under authoritarian regimes. Such settings pose significant obstacles, not only because of the absence of a peace process that might involve transitional justice but also because the authoritarian regime precludes any form of political, social or public space related to transitional justice. In order to advance the research agenda in a way that responds to current challenges, future research should further explore how civil society actors can use specific transitional justice mechanisms to achieve truth and justice in authoritarian regimes. Closer examination of cases that have not been on the radar of transitional justice scholarship could provide new avenues for learning.
This study is one of the first empirical contributions that situates Turkey’s Kurdish conflict within the transitional justice literature. It advances our understanding of the use of transitional justice in ongoing conflicts and assesses the potentials and limits of grassroots mobilization for transitional justice. It also examines the impact of authoritarian regimes on civil society-led transitional justice processes. Turkey offers a unique case for transitional justice scholars and practitioners globally to learn from civil society actors committed to pursuing justice under challenging circumstances. Transitional justice theory and practice can also benefit from a better understanding of how such processes operate in, or are constrained by, ongoing conflict and authoritarianism. In essence, adopting the transitional justice framework and terminology has much to offer the Kurdish struggle for official recognition of the past locally and globally. Equally, the work of grassroots actors in Turkey during an ongoing conflict has much to offer the broader transitional justice field.
Footnotes
See e.g., Onur Bakiner, ‘Why do Peace Negotiations Succeed or Fail? Legal Commitment, Transparency, and Inclusion during Peace Negotiations in Colombia (2012–2016) and Turkey (2012–2015),’ Negotiation Journal 35(4) (2019): 471–513; Bahar Rumelili and Ayşe Betül Çelik, ‘Ontological Insecurity in Asymmetric Conflicts,’ Security Dialogue 48(4) (2017): 279–296.
Thomas Hansen, ‘The Time and Space of Transitional Justice,’ in Research Handbook on Transitional Justice, ed. Cheryl Lawther, Luke Moffett and Dov Jacobs Cheltenham, (UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), 34–51.
Ibid.
Ibid.; Par Engstrom, ‘Transitional Justice and Ongoing Conflict,’ in Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding on the Ground: Victims and Ex-Combatants, ed. Chandra Sriram, Jemima García-Godos, Johanna Herman and Olga Martin-Ortega (New York: Routledge, 2013), 41–61; Jeremy Sarkin, ‘Refocusing Transitional Justice to Focus Not Only on the Past, but also to Concentrate on Ongoing Conflicts and Enduring Human Rights Crises,’ Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 7(2) (2016): 294–329; Maria A. Van Nievelt, ‘Transitional Justice in Ongoing Conflict,’ Cornell International Affairs Review 9(2) (2016): 101–138; Hansen, supra n 2.
A recently published edited book analyses transitional justice in a-paradigmatic contexts. See Tine Destrooper, Line Engbo Gissel and Kerstin Bree Carlson, eds., Transitional Justice in Aparadigmatic Contexts: Accountability, Recognition and Disruption (Abingdon: Routledge, 2023).
For a detailed analysis of the rise of authoritarianism globally, see Berch Berberoglu, ed., The Global Rise of Authoritarianism in the 21st Century: Crisis of Neoliberal Globalization and the Nationalist Response (New York: Routledge, 2021).
Robert Meister, After Evil: A Politics of Human Rights (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011).
Fionnuala Ni Aolain and Colm Campbell, ‘The Paradox of Transition in Conflicted Democracies,’ Human Rights Quarterly 27(1) (2005): 172–213.
Engstrom, supra n 4; Hansen, supra n 2; Joanna R. Quinn, ‘Whiter the Transition in Transitional Justice,’ Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights 8(1) (2014): 63–79.
Engstrom, supra n 4; Ron Dudai and Hillel Cohen, ‘Dealing with the Past When the Conflict Is Still Present,’ in Localising Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence, ed. Lars Waldorf, Rosalind Shaw and Pierre Hazan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 228–252.
Hansen, supra n 2.
Sarkin, supra n 4.
Engstrom, supra n 4; Van Nievelt, supra n 4.
Sarkin, supra n 4.
Van Nievelt, supra n 4.
Thomas Hansen, ‘The Vertical and Horizontal Expansion of Transitional Justice: Explanations and Implications for a Contested Field,’ in Transitional Justice Theories, ed. Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Teresa K. Beck, Christian Braun and Friederike Mieth (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), 105–124.
Sarkin, supra n 4.
Hansen, supra n 2 at 23.
Francis O’Connor and Bahar Baser, ‘Communal Violence and Ethnic Polarization before and after the 2015 Elections in Turkey: Attacks against the HDP and the Kurdish Population,’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18(1) (2018): 53–72.
Joost Jongerden, ‘Looking Beyond the State: Transitional Justice and the Kurdish Issue in Turkey,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 41(4) (2017): 1–18.
Welat Zeydanlığlu, ‘The White Turkish Man’s Burden: Orientalism, Kemalism and the Kurds in Turkey,’ in Neo-colonial Mentalities in Contemporary Europe? Language and Discourse in the Construction of Identities, ed. G.Guido Rings and Anne Ife (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 155–174.
Jongerden, supra n 20 at 3.
Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi (Grand National Assembly of Turkey), Terör ve Şiddet Olayları Kapsamında Yaşam Hakkı İhlallerini İnceleme Raporu (Ankara: TBMM İnsan Haklarını İnceleme Komisyonu, 2013); O’Connor and Baser, supra n 19.
David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007).
Hugh Pope, ‘Erdogan’s Decade,’ The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, 2012, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/erdogans-decade/ (accessed 18 Janaury 2024); Marlies Casier, ‘Contesting the “Truth” of Turkey’s Human Rights Situation: State-Association Interactions in and outside the Southeast,’ Eronur uopean Journal of Turkish Studies 10(1) (2009): 1–19.
Onur Bakiner,‘Truth, Justice, and Commemoration Initiatives in Turkey,’ in The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics, ed. Güneş Murat Tezcür (Oxford: Oxford Academic, online edn., 2020).
Pınar Dinç, ‘Dersim 1937–38: Shifts and Continuities in the State Discourse and Reasoning under Kemalism and Erdoğanism,’ in The Kurds in Erdogan’s ‘New’ Turkey ed. Nikos Christofis (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), 159–180.
Bilgin Ayata and Serra Hakyemez, ‘The AKP’s Engagement with Turkey’s Past Crimes: An Analysis of PM Erdogan’s “Dersim Apology”,’ Dialectical Anthropology 37(1) (3) (2013): 131–143.
Ibid.
Ibid., 137.
Dinç, supra n 27.
International Crisis Group, Turkey: The PKK and a Kurdish Settlement (September 2012); Arin Savran, ‘The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, 2009–2015,’ Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 22(6) (2020): 777–792.
For a detailed account of the peace process and the reasons for its collapse, see Ayşe Betül Çelik, ‘Agonistic Peace and Confronting the Past: An Analysis of a Failed Peace Process and the Role of Narratives,’ Cooperation and Conflict 56(1) (2020): 26–43.
Yeşim Budak, ‘Dealing with the Past: Transitional Justice, Ongoing Conflict and the Kurdish Issue in Turkey,’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice 9(2) (2015): 219–238.
Onur Bakiner, ‘Is Turkey Coming to Terms with Its Past? Politics of Memory and Majoritarian Conservatism,’ Nationalities Papers 41(5) (2013): 691–708.
Bakiner, supra n 1.
Sinan Erensü and Ayça Alemdaroglu, ‘Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian Rurn,’ Review of Middle East Studies 52(1) (2018): 16–28; Joost Jongerden, ‘Conquering the State and Subordinating Society under AKP Rule: A Kurdish Perspective on the Development of a New Autocracy in Turkey,’ Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 21(3) (2018): 260–273; Zeynep N. Kaya and Matthew Whiting, ‘The HDP, the AKP and the Battle for Turkish Democracy,’ Ethnopolitics 18(1) (2019): 92–106; Bilge Yabanci, ‘Turkey’s Tamed Civil Society: Containment and Appropriation under a Competitive Authoritarian Regime,’ Journal of Civil Society 15(4) (2019): 285–306; Zafer Yılmaz and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Turkey’s Deepening Authoritarianism and the Fall of Electoral Democracy,’ British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46(5) (2019): 691–698.
Burcu Özçelik, ‘What the HDP Success Means for Turkey,’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 11 June 2015, https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/60370 (accessed 25 November 2023).
Kerem Öktem and Karabekir Akkoyunlu, ‘Exit from Democracy: Illiberal Governance in Turkey and beyond,’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4) (2016): 469–480.
Serra Hakyemez, ‘Turkey’s Failed Peace Process with the Kurds: A Different Explanation,’ Middle East Brief 111 (2017), https://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/middle-east-briefs/pdfs/101-200/meb111.pdf (accessed 12 April 2023).
O’Connor and Baser, supra n 23.
Öktem and Akkoyunlu, supra n 39; Yılmaz and Turner, supra n 37.
David Lewis, John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran, ‘Illiberal Peace? Authoritarian Modes of Conflict Management,’ Cooperation and Conflict 53(4) (2018): 486–506; Zafer and Turner, supra n 37 at 695.
Amnesty International, Turkey: End Abusive Operations under Indefinite Curfews (January 2016); Jesse Rosenfeld, ‘Turkey Is Fighting a Dirty War Against Its Own Kurdish Population,’ The Nation, 9 March 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-war-against-its-own-kurdish-population/ (accessed 2 December 2023).
United Nations, Report on the human rights situation in South-East Turkey (2017).
Human Rights Watch, Turkey: Kurdish Mayors’ Removal Violates Voters’ Rights (2020); Neslihan Çetin, ‘State of Emergency in Turkey (July 2016 – July 2018): A Case of Utilization of Law as a Political Instrument,’ International Journal of Business, Human and Social Sciences, 2020; Gizem Tuğba Özkut and Jülide Aşçı, ‘Long-Lasting State of Emergency: Use of (In)security for Consolidation of Power in Turkey,’ Democracy and Security 16(3) (2020): 189–209; Peri Uran Murphy and Pasquale Pasquino, ‘Long Lasting State of Emergency in Turkey and the Recent Constitutional Amendments under Its Shade,’ International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies 10(2) (2023): 99–113.
Kaya and Whiting, supra n 37; Yılmaz and Turner, supra n 37.
Kaya and Whiting, supra n 37.
Özlem Kaya and Pınar Öğünç, ‘Chess, Hide-and-seek and Determination. Civil Society in Difficult Times,’ Anadolu Kültür, (March 2020).
Greensboro Truth Commission is one of the most widely studied unofficial, community-led truth commissions. For some of the recent works, see e.g., Nicole Fox and David Cunningham, ‘Transitional Justice in Public and Private: Truth Commission Narratives in Greensboro,’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice 6(2) (2022): 235–253.
Louis Bickford, ‘Unofficial Truth Projects,’ Human Rights Quarterly 29(4) (2007): 994–1035.
Thomas Hansen, ‘Transitional Justice: Toward a Differentiated Theory,’ Oregon Review of International Law 13 (1) (2011): 1–46.
Yeşim Yaprak Yıldız and Patrick Baert, ‘Confessions without Guilt: Public Confessions of State Violence in Turkey,’ Theory and Society 50(1) (2021): 125–149.
Bakiner, supra n 35; Budak, supra n 34; Duygu Gül Kaya, ‘Coming to Terms with the Past: Rewriting History Through a Therapeutic Public Discourse in Turkey,’ International Journal of Middle East Studies 47(4) (2015) 681–700.
Bakiner, supra n 35.
United Nations, Guidance note of the Secretary General United Nations Approach to Transitional Justice (2010); Lydia Gitanjali Thiagarajah, ‘Memorialisation and Reparations: A Report of Four Dialogues,’ International Centre for Ethnic Studies (2016).
This is not to say that there were not any movements that had been campaigning for truth and justice for conflict-related human rights violations earlier on. For example, the Saturday Mothers movement, founded in 1995, has mobilized as a response to enforced disappearances and become a social movement that has built a public space where the notions of truth and justice have gained visibility and support from a broad network of actors.
Yıldırım Türker, ‘Diyarbakır Cezaevi,’ 15 September 2008, https://acikradyo.com.tr/arsiv-icerigi/diyarbakir-cezaevi (accessed 9 July 2022); Erol Önderoğlu, ‘Torturers Will be Called to Account,’ Bianet, 28 September 2010, https://m.bianet.org/bianet/minorities/125076-torturers-will-be-called-to-account (accessed 18 August 2022). The 78’er Initiative comprises a group of activists from the 78s generation, the term used to broadly refer to left-wing activists who experienced the 1980 military coup.
The Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison, ‘Diyarbakır Cezaevi Okul Değil, İnsan Hakları Müzesi Olmalıdır,’ Birikim, 15 September 2009, https://birikimdergisi.com/guncel/773/diyarbakir-cezaevi-okul-degil-insan-haklari-muzesi-olmalidir (accessed 22 December 2021).
Yeşim Yaprak Yıldız, ‘Forced Confession as a Ritual of Sovereignty: The Case of Diyarbakır Military Prison in Turkey,’ Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law 17(2) (2016): 185–198.
Welat Zeydanlioglu, ‘Torture and Turkification in the Diyarbakir Military Prison,’ in Rights, Citizenship & Torture: Perpdectives on Evil, Law and the State, ed. Welat Zeydanlioğlu and John T. Perry (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009), 73–92.
Going up to the mountain is a common expression to refer to those who decided to take up arms and join the PKK forces located in the mountains.
Türker, supra n 58.
CNN Türk, ‘Diyarbakır Cezaevi için Toplu Suç Duyurusu,’ 11 December 2018, https://www.cnnturk.com/2010/turkiye/10/11/diyarbakir.cezaevi.icin.toplu.suc.duyurusu/592627.0/index.html (accessed 10 December 2021).
The Truth and Justice Commission for Diyarbakır Prison, supra n 59; Burcu Karakaş, ‘İnsanlığa karşı suçların merkezi,’ Milliyet, 4 December 2011, https://www.milliyet.com.tr/gundem/insanliga-karsi-suclarin-merkezi-1470789 (accessed 1 December 2023).
Türker, supra n 58.
Anadolu Kültür, ‘Sivil Toplumun Kürt Sorununun Çözümüne Etkin Katılımı İçin Kapasite Geliştirme,’ 5 December 2010, https://hakikatadalethafiza.org/kaynak/sivil-toplumun-kurt-sorununun-cozumune-etkin-katilimi-icin-kapasite-gelistirme-projesi-stk-gorusmeleri-raporu/ (accessed 22 March 2022).
Karakaş, supra n 65.
Bianet, ‘“Yüzleşme” Sırası İstanbul’da,’ 29 November 2011, https://bianet.org/bianet/bilim/134378-yuzlesme-sirasi-istanbul-da (accessed 9 April 2022).
Şeyhmus Diken, ‘Bir Hafıza Anıtı, Diyarbakır 5 Nolu’ya Dair!’ Bianet, 2 October 2010, https://m.bianet.org/bianet/insan-haklari/125174-bir-hafiza-aniti-diyarbakir-5-nolu-ya-dair (accessed 7 November 2021).
Karakaş, supra n 65.
Hülya Karabağlı, ‘TBMM’de dönemin işkenceleriyle ünlü Diyarbakır 5 No’lu Cezaevi ile ilgili alt komisyon kuruldu,’ T24, 17 December 2015, https://t24.com.tr/haber/tbmmde-donemin-iskenceleriyle-unlu-diyarbakir-5-nolu-cezaevi-ile-ilgili-alt-komisyon-kuruldu,320748 (accessed 15 March 2022).
Ibid.
MHP, an ultra-nationalist political party, was the only party that did not support and therefore did not give any members to this subcommission.
Hülya Karabağlı, ‘TBMM Diyarbakır 5 No’lu Cezaevi Alt Komisyonu dağılıyor: Dışarıdan bir itibarsızlaştırma yaşadık,’ T24, 17 September 2017, https://t24.com.tr/haber/tbmm-diyarbakir-5-nolu-cezaevi-alt-komisyonu-dagiliyor-disaridan-bir-itibarsizlastirma-yasadik,442427 (accessed 22 May 2023).
Rûpela Nû, ‘Meclis’in hazırladığı Diyarbakır Cezaevi raporu 3 yıldır açıklanmadı,’ 2 June 2021, http://www.rupelanu.org/meclisin-hazirladigi-diyarbakir-cezaevi-raporu-3-yildir-aciklanmadi-16125h.htm (accessed 2 October 2021).
Bianet, ‘Diyarbakır 5 Nolu İşkencelerine Takipsizlik,’ 4 July 2014, https://bianet.org/haber/diyarbakir-5-nolu-iskencelerine-takipsizlik-156982 (accessed 2 December 2023).
Sabah, ‘12 Eylul’deki Iskencelere Sorusturma,’ 6 April 2012, https://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2012/04/06/12-eyluldeki-iskencelere-sorusturma (accessed 12 November 2021).
Celalettin Can, ‘‘Bir daha asla!’ Diyebilmek için … Diyarbakır 5 No’lu Askeri Cezaevi yıkılmasın! İnsan Hakları Müzesi olsun!’ Independent Türkçe, 18 April 2022, https://www.indyturk.com/node/498971/t%C3%BCrki%CC%87yeden-sesler/bir-daha-asla-diyebilmek-i%C3%A7in%E2%80%A6-diyarbak%C4%B1r-5-nolu-askeri-cezaevi (accessed 7 May 2022).
Derya Meryem, ‘Türkiye’de Yüzleşme Müzeleri ve Yüzleşilemeyen Diyarbakır Cezaevi,’ Sivil Sayfalar, 24 May 2018, https://memorializeturkey.com/en/memorial/diyarbakir-military-prison-project/ (accessed 9 November 2021).
Burcu Karakaş, ‘Hani Diyarbakır Cezaevi müze olacaktı?’ P24, 19 December 2016, http://platform24.org/yazarlar/1922/hani-diyarbakir-cezaevi-muze-olacakti (accessed 8 December 2021).
Bethan McKernan, ‘“Tell Those Stories”: Kurds Call for Torture Prison to Be Turned into Place of Healing,’ The Guardian, 18 July 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/tell-those-stories-kurds-call-for-torture-prison-to-be-turned-into-place-of-healing (accessed 12 April 2022).
Bickford, supra n 51.
Padraig McAuliffe, ‘Surrogacy and Resistance: Evolving Patterns in Unofficial Truth Commissions and Truth Projects,’ in The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions, ed. Jeremy Sarkin (Cambridge, UK: Intersentia, 2019), 282.
In alphabetic order, this is the list of organizations which I interviewed representatives of: 78’ers Initiative, DEMOS Research Centre, Diyarbakir Bar Association, Human Rights Association Diyarbakir, Human Rights Association Istanbul, Lawyers Association for Freedom, Mesopotamia News Agency, Migration Monitoring Association, Rights Initiative, Rosa Women’s Association, Social Memory Platform, Tigris Social Research Centre, Truth Justice Memory Centre, Turkey Human Rights Foundation Diyarbakir, Turkey Human Rights Foundation Istanbul, Saturday Mothers.
William Gibson and Andrew Brown, Working with Qualitative Data (London: SAGE, 2009).
Personal interview, lawyer and human rights advocate, 30 July 2019.
Personal interview, human rights advocate, 7 August 2019.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Budak, supra n 34.
Personal interview, human rights advocate, 7 August 2019.
Personal interview, researcher and civil society representative, 2 August 2019.
Personal interview, civil society representative, 30 July 2019.
Noha Aboueldahab, ‘Writing Atrocities: Syrian Civil Society and Transitional Justice,’ Brooking Doha Centre, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/transitional-justice-english_web.pdf (accessed 21 December 2021), 2.
Ibid.
Human Rights Watch, Turkey: State Blocks Probes of Southeast Killings, 2016.
Elçi and Others v. Turkey (dec.), no. 63,129/15, 6 December 2016.
Personal interview, lawyer and civil society representative, 4 October 2020.
Personal interview, lawyer, 15 October 2020.
Personal interview, lawyer, 27 July 2020; Personal interview, lawyer, 7 October 2020.
Güley Bor, Güneş Daşlı and Nisan Alıcı, ‘From Converging Roads to Narrowing Grounds: The Struggle for Peace by LGBTI+ and Women’s Organizations in Turkey,’ September 2021, https://en.demos.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/from-converging-roads-to-narrowing-groun.pdf (accessed 4 June 2022).
Personal interview, human rights advocate, 7 August 2019.
Author notes
Research fellow, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast, UK. Email: [email protected]
The author would like to thank Rory O’Connell, Jonathan Doak, Bill Rolston, Lauren Dempster as well as anonymous reviewers and editors for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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