Freedom House’s latest report on international repression says that while Turkey hosts many victims of transnational repression, it is also one of the worst perpetrators of such repression globally.
“Incidents of transnational repression that took place in Turkey accounted for a quarter of the total recorded by Freedom House last year,” the report said.
“Defending Democracy in Exile: Understanding and Responding to Transnational Repression“, published on Thursday, said Turkey became a more dangerous place in 2021 for people targeted by foreign regimes, particularly China and Turkmenistan.
Due to common cultural, religious and linguistic traditions, as many as 50,000 Uyghurs from China live in Turkey today – but the community remains vulnerable to Beijing’s reach. Police raids, arrests and threats of deportation to China are frequent.
The report said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government’s foreign policy goals influence domestic policy, as Turkey gets closer to China and tries to mend relations with Middle Eastern countries after years of tension.
“When the origin state using transnational repression is an adversary, Turkey protects the targeted and punishes the perpetrators. When the origin state is a friendly nation, Turkey silences activism and endangers the already vulnerable,” the report noted.
According to the report, Turkey uses international repression to silence dissent beyond its borders. Freedom House data show that between 2017 and 2021, Turkey came second only to China in terms of the number of acts of physical transnational repression – 123.
The report said Turkey also exploited international security systems as well as cooperation with other countries’ security and intelligence agencies.
“Awareness among security agencies about transnational repression can also strengthen their resistance to authoritarian manipulation under the guise of bilateral cooperation,” the report said, noting an example of when Turkish intelligence services requested German assistance to survey Turks living in Germany.
According to the report, Germany’s Intelligence service did not provide any help. Instead, it warned the affected individuals and alerted German police and justice to be “aware of the fact that Turkey’s government is one of the world’s most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression”.
The report said that authoritarian states including Turkey often exploit Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, to hunt down dissidents.
“The abuse of Interpol by authoritarian states seeking to detain and extradite dissidents from other countries illustrates the extent to which membership in international organizations can be manipulated for the purposes of transnational repression,” it said.
In 2021, Russia, China, Turkey, and Bahrain were all able to have individuals detained in Poland, Morocco, Kenya, Serbia and Italy on the basis of Interpol “Red Notices”, it said. “In most cases, the individuals had engaged in political or civic activism.”
International rights groups have repeatedly condemned Turkey’s use of violent tactics against exiles.
Following a failed coup attempt in 2016, President Erdogan unleashed a massive crackdown on his opponents, with hundreds of thousands of people jailed and persecuted.
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Freedom House: Turkey One of World's Worst Transnational Repressors - Balkan Insight
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