The jails in Turkey have long been mentioned in the same breath as inhumane actions and the breach of even the most basic rights, especially against the political prisoners. The violations have reached to unprecedented levels in parallel with the emergence of the current political-Islamist authoritarianism. The oppressive regime under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule instrumentalized the country’s legal system to muzzle the political dissidence, turning the prisons into concentration camps. The number of inmates behind the bars has reached historic highs. Hosting convicts much more than their capacities, the prisons, which were already substantially subpar, have fallen way below the minimum acceptable standards for human dignity. Patients in particular bore the most of the brunt of this precipitated deterioration of the prison conditions and the wrath of the Turkish regime against its opponents.

From 2016 to 2023, in the midst of the human rights crisis, numerous individuals fell victim to grief, stress, and illness. As of November 2023, we have documented 952 casualties attributed to the state of emergency (OHAL) and decree laws (KHK), which include 90 children. This encompasses suspicious deaths in prisons, those who took their own lives, and those who lost their lives while trying to flee Turkey across the Meric and Aegean, encountering denial to return to their home countries. The numerous state-sanctioned human rights abuses in Turkey are too extensive to enumerate. AST engages in a range of activities, from organizing conferences and panels to writing reports submitted to relevant organizations and committees. Collaborating with other organizations is crucial for sharing causes, learning from others' stories, and amplifying our own narratives. In response to the pandemic and global crises, AST has adapted its strategies, incorporating virtual protests, panels, and written works, including reports and books. Survivor interviews are shared through books, providing a platform for the voices of those persecuted. AST encourages people to write letters to decision-makers and focuses on youth empowerment, recognizing the significant role young advocates play. Collaboration between youth and adults is essential in all aspects of our activities, including the use of art and music to advocate for human rights. In 2024, AST remains committed to being the voice of the voiceless, defending fundamental rights, educating and motivating human rights advocates, urging leaders to prioritize human rights, and convening groups for collaborative action. Let us unite in the fight against violence, inequality, and injustice. Through solidarity and political unity, we can amplify our strength, break down prejudices, and work towards a world free from violence and injustice. Thank you for being part of this crucial cause. AST GIVES A VOICE TO THE VOICELESS The Advocates of Silenced Turkey (AST) are committed to combating human rights abuses and injustices within Turkey. AST consists not only of legal experts but also includes relatives of political prisoners and victims who have faced job loss, property confiscation, and the loss of family members under the current oppressive administration. AST actively participates in various human rights initiatives, which encompass the creation of reports submitted to relevant committees, councils, and entities. AST organizes conferences, documents all forms of violence and injustice experienced by the Turkish people, arranges exhibitions, produces documentaries, and hosts art competitions. Committed to advancing democracy and human rights in Turkey, AST is dedicated to expanding its efforts in raising awareness and advocating for the cause.

When the Turkish President declared in an infamous speech that “Old Turkey no longer exists. This Turkey is new Turkey”, the story of Turkish authoritarianism had once and for all taken on a new character. Since July of 2016, the Turkish government has improperly imprisoned 160,000+homemakers, teachers, NGO workers, academics, judges, prosecutors and journalists. Once upon a time, the Republic of Turkey was lauded by insiders and outsiders for constituting a powerful model for democratization. In New Turkey, however, silence against the regime’s draconian laws, mass imprisonment, and frequent violations of universal human rights has become the norm. In a regime which ranks as the worst upholder of the rule-of law including Eastern Europe & Central Asia, 200+ media outlets have been shut down and 308 journalists and numerous human rights defenders, politicians, including Ilhan Isbilen, Hidayet Karaca, Buşra Erdal, Selahattin Demirtaş and Osman Kavala are held as political prisoners of the state. As a prominent journalist and recipient of international awards, Ahmet Altan was among the political prisoners who resist the regime’s unlawfulness. He was jailed for five years as a result of the crackdown on freedom of expression in Turkey. We are a group of lawyers, judges, academics, journalists, and hundreds of activists who cherish democratic ideals and universal human rights. We are prisoners of conscience wanted by the Erdogan’s regime, relatives of political prisoners, and victims who have lost their jobs, property and even family members to the current administration which has been described as a Mafia State. We are the Advocates of Silenced Turkey. We, the Advocates, have made it our mission to champion the rights of Silenced Turkey until universal human rights and democratic governance are established and sustained as the utmost priorities of the Republic of Turkey. In this regard, we have been the voice of voiceless people of Turkey by means of more than 200 human rights projects. We have shared the stories of the victims of grave human rights violations and persecution in Turkey through the personal belongings of them in The Social Genocide exhibition held in over 4 locations so far. We are also sharing the lives and experiences of persecuted people of Turkey with books. Among those books are the life stories of Gokhan Acikkollu and Halime Gulsu who died of torture in during incarceration in Turkey’s jails. In order to shed light on hideous assaults and rights violations in jails that women face, we have recently conducted a survey which will be reported to international entities and presented in conferences. Furthermore, as AST, we have been gathering prominent human rights experts to only discuss the human rights issues but also recommend solutions at our signature event, the Freedom Convention. For more work we do as human rights defenders please see this report closely. Thank you for all the support you do to help us achieve our humanity goals!

AST GIVES A VOICE TO THE VOICELESS AST holds conventions to bring light to the ongoing conflict and its influences in Turkey and also develops strategies to champion human rights worldwide through panels, discussions, workshops, art and photo exhibitions, and legal training sessions. Among the events we have organized are the Freedom Convention 2020, Women as Survivors of Conflicts (within the UN CSW conferences), film festivals, photo exhibitions and book talks! Around 1,660 materials including; reports, events, infographics and videos have been created in four years. We are a group of lawyers, judges, academics, journalists, and hundreds of activists who cherish democratic ideals and universal human rights. We are prisoners of conscience wanted by the Erdogan’s regime, relatives of political prisoners, and victims who have lost their jobs, property and even family members to the current administration which has been described as a Mafia State. We are the Advocates of Silenced Turkey. We, the Advocates, have made it our mission to champion the rights of Silenced Turkey until universal human rights and democratic governance are established and sustained as the utmost priorities of the Republic of Turkey. TAKE ACTION We stand up for our rights and the rights of others who have been silenced. You can be one of the advocates of silenced Turkey by being a volunteer of AST.

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 192 countries and a group of select territories are used by policy makers, the media, international corporations, and civic activists and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. Press accounts of the survey findings appear in hundreds of influential newspapers in the United States and abroad and form the basis of numerous radio and television reports. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

Who controls the media today? There are many media systems across the globe that claim to be free yet whose independence has been eroded. As demagogues rise, independent voices have been squeezed out. Corporate-owned media companies that act in the service of power increasingly exercise soft censorship. Tech giants such as Facebook and Google have dramatically changed how people access information, with consequences that are only beginning to be felt. This book features pathbreaking analysis from journalists and academics of the changing nature and peril of media capture—how formerly independent institutions fall under the sway of governments, plutocrats, and corporations. Contributors including Emily Bell, Felix Salmon, Joshua Marshall, Joel Simon, and Nikki Usher analyze diverse cases of media capture worldwide—from the United Kingdom to Turkey to India and beyond—many drawn from firsthand experience. They examine the role played by new media companies and funders, showing how the confluence of the growth of big tech and falling revenues for legacy media has led to new forms of control. Contributions also shed light on how the rise of right-wing populists has catalyzed the crisis of global media. They also chart a way forward, exploring the growing need for a policy response and sustainable models for public-interest investigative journalism. Providing valuable insight into today’s urgent threats to media independence, Media Capture is essential reading for anyone concerned with defending press freedom in the digital age.

The study of politics in Turkey : new horizons and perennial pitfalls / Güneş Murat Tezcür -- Democratization theories and Turkey / Ekrem Karakoç -- Ruling ideologies in modern Turkey / Kerem Öktem -- Constitutionalism in Turkey / Aslı Ü. Bâli -- Civil-military relations and the demise of Turkish democracy / Nil S. Satana and Burak Bilgehan Özpek -- Capturing secularism in Turkey : the ease of comparison / Murat Akan -- The political economy of Turkey since the end of World War II / Şevket Pamuk -- Neoliberal politics in Turkey / Sinan Erensü and Yahya M. Madra -- The politics of welfare in Turkey / Erdem Yörük -- The political economy of environmental policymaking in Turkey : a vicious cycle / Fikret Adaman, Bengi Akbulut, and Murat Arsel -- The politics of energy in Turkey : running engines on geopolitical, discursive, and coercive power / Begüm Özkaynak, Ethemcan Turhan, and Cem İskender Aydın -- The contemporary politics of health in Turkey : diverse actors, competing frames, and uneven policies / Volkan Yılmaz -- Populism in Turkey : historical and contemporary patterns / Yüksel Taşkın -- Old and new polarizations and failed democratizations in Turkey / Murat Somer -- Economic voting during the AKP era in Turkey / S. Erdem Aytaç -- Party organizations in Turkey and their consequences for democracy / Melis G. Laebens -- The evolution of conventional political participation in Turkey / Ersin Kalaycıoğlu -- Symbolic politics and contention in the Turkish Republic / Senem Aslan -- Islamist activism in Turkey / Menderes Çınar -- The Kurdish movement in Turkey : understanding everyday perceptions and experiences / Dilan Okcuoglu -- The Transnational Mobilization of the Alevis of Turkey : from invisibility to the struggle for equality / Ceren Lord -- Politics of asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey : limits and prospects of populism / Fatih Resul Kılınç and Şule Toktaş -- A theoretical account of Turkish foreign policy under the AKP / Tarık Oğuzlu -- US-Turkey relations since WWII : from alliance to transactionalism / Serhat Güvenç and Soli Özel -- Turkey and Europe : historical asynchronicities and perceptual asymmetries / Hakan Yılmaz -- Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East : an identity perspective / Lisel Hintz -- Turkey and Russia : historical patterns and contemporary trends in bilateral relations / Evren Balta and Mitat Çelikpala -- Citizenship and protest behavior in Turkey / Ayhan Kaya -- Gender politics and the struggle for equality in Turkey / Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat -- Human rights organizations in Turkey / Başak Çalı -- Truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives in Turkey / Onur Bakiner -- The politics of media in Turkey : chronicle of a stillborn media system / Sarphan Uzunoğlu -- The AKP's rhetoric of rule in Turkey : political melodramas of conspiracy from "ergenekon" to "mastermind" / Erdağ Göknar -- The transformation of political cinema in Turkey since the 1960s : a change of discourse / Zeynep Çetin-Erus and M. Elif Demoğlu -- Political music in Turkey : the birth and diversification of dissident and conformist music (1920-2000) / Mustafa Avcı.