In 2018, in keeping with a constitutional referendum held the previous year, Turkey instituted a presidential system of government that made the president the chief national authority and granted the office sweeping executive powers. The president is directly elected for up to two five-year terms but is eligible to run for a third term in the event of early elections. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan served as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, after which he moved to the presidency. Electoral authorities allowed him to run for a third term in 2023 on

the grounds that his second election was the first under the new constitutional system.

Erdoğan won the May 2023 presidential race in the second round with 52.18 percent of the vote, defeating Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the CHP. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticized the election, reporting that state-run media heavily favored the AKP in its coverage and that opposition forces were hampered by restrictions on their freedoms of assembly, association, and expression, among other problems.

The unicameral Grand National Assembly has 600 seats. Lawmakers are elected to five-year terms by proportional representation. Parties need at least 7 percent of the national vote to join the parliament.

In the May 2023 elections, held concurrently with the presidential vote, the AKP joined the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and two smaller parties to form the People’s Alliance, which won 49.5 percent of the vote and 323 seats. The opposition Nation’s Alliance, led by the CHP and including the İyi Party (İP) and four smaller parties, won 35 percent of the vote and took 212 seats. The pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) won 10.6 percent of the vote, gaining 65 seats. As with the presidential election, the OSCE’s monitoring assessment noted the impact of restrictions on basic freedoms, political interference in the electoral process, and a lack of transparency.

The judges of the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), who oversee all voting procedures, are appointed by AKP-dominated judicial bodies and often defer to the AKP in their decisions. Ahead of the May 2023 general elections, the OSCE raised concerns about the independence of the YSK, and the council drew criticism for its approval of a third presidential term for Erdoğan.

An electoral law passed in 2022 lowered the parliamentary entry threshold from 10 percent to 7 percent and changed the way parliamentary seats are distributed among party alliances. The law also modified procedures for the selection of judges who oversee elections and control the vote-counting process in a way that increased the likelihood of pro-AKP bias.

Turkey maintains a multiparty system. Parties are required to organize chapters and hold congresses in at least half of Turkey’s provinces no later than six months before an election in order to participate.

Opposition leaders face politically motivated prosecutions, violent attacks, and other forms of harassment that affect their parties’ ability to function. Throughout the 2023 election period, opposition leaders from the CHP and İP faced assassination threats, and their offices, buses, and campaign rallies suffered violent attacks. The parties complained that state security forces, including the police, failed to provide them with adequate protection. The CHP’s most popular leader, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, was convicted of insulting state institutions in December 2022, six months ahead of the elections. This verdict effectively prevented the CHP from naming İmamoğlu as its presidential candidate; an appeal in the case was still pending as of 2024, and İmamoğlu had since been targeted with a variety of other new charges and investigations.

Turkey’s opposition parties also face threats of closure. For years, prosecutors had investigated and jailed members of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for their alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey as well as the United States and European Union (EU). A potential ban on the HDP itself prompted the party to regroup under the YSP banner in order to compete in the May 2023 elections. In October 2023, the YSP rebranded itself as the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party.

President Erdoğan and the AKP assert partisan control over the YSK, the judiciary, the police, and the media. In recent years, they have aggressively used these institutional tools to weaken or co-opt political rivals, limiting the opposition’s ability to build voter support and gain power through elections.

Despite these significant challenges, the opposition has been able to increase its support and win elections, particularly at the municipal level. In the March 2024 municipal elections, the CHP won in almost all major cities and expanded its control over more conservative districts, placing the AKP in second place overall for the first since 2002. Among other key opposition victories, İmamoğlu was elected to a second term as mayor of Istanbul.

However, opposition leaders face obstacles even after winning elections. The central government, using its control over appointed provincial governors, has replaced dozens of HDP mayors with trustees since the 2019 elections, and has obstructed newly elected CHP mayors from carrying out their duties. After the March 2024 elections, the government continued appointing trustees to opposition-controlled municipalities. In Istanbul’s Esenyurt district, for example, Mayor Ahmet Özer of the CHP was arrested on terrorism charges in October and replaced with a trustee, Deputy Governor Can Aksoy. The government also replaced pro-Kurdish DEM mayors with trustees in Batman, Mardin, and Halfeti in November.

The AKP’s institutional dominance threatens to make the state an extension of the party that can be used to change political outcomes. The AKP’s use of state resources and public benefits programs to increase its votes around elections, as well as its use of public tenders to influence and control the private sector, are especially problematic. Moreover, violent attacks and threats of violence against opposition parties contribute to the intimidation of opposition leaders throughout the campaign period and of voters on election day.

Political rights are upheld unevenly among different demographic groups. Critics charge that the AKP favors Sunni Muslims. While members of Turkey’s non-Sunni Alevi community and non-Muslim citizens hold seats in the parliament, the government’s crackdown on the opposition parties in which they are concentrated has seriously harmed their political rights and electoral opportunities. Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu became the country’s first Alevi presidential candidate in 2023, and Erdoğan and his allies in the government and media explicitly attacked Kılıçdaroğlu’s Alevi identity throughout the campaign period.

While ethnic Kurds, Turkey’s largest ethnic minority group, are represented in politics, pro-Kurdish parties experience regular harassment by the government via hate speech, politically motivated prosecutions, and disinformation in progovernment media.

Women and LGBT+ people face de facto obstacles to political participation and remain underrepresented in politics and in leadership positions in government. Women held about 20 percent of the seats in the Grand National Assembly after the 2023 elections, a slight increase from the 2018 elections. A handful of LGBT+ candidates have run for office, but LGBT+ people remain politically marginalized, in part because the government uses public morality laws to restrict advocacy for LGBT+ rights. The 2023 elections featured successful campaigns by several far-right politicians who ran on explicitly homophobic platforms.

While some of the nearly four million Syrian refugees in Turkey have obtained Turkish citizenship in recent years, most have no clear legal path to gain such status and thus no access to political rights.

Erdoğan controls all executive functions, often rules by decree, and makes all major policy decisions. Since 2016, he has overhauled Turkey’s ministries and agencies, purging tens of thousands of civil servants and replacing them with political loyalists. He exerts effective control over the legislature through his leadership of the AKP; lawmakers’ capacity to provide policy contributions has greatly eroded under the new presidential system in effect since 2018. Erdoğan frequently intervenes against ministries and independent public bodies that defy his wishes. The central government’s control over state resources has deprived opposition-run municipalities of financial support.

Corruption remains a serious problem, including at the highest levels of government. Enforcement of anticorruption laws is inconsistent, and anticorruption agencies are ineffective or politicized, creating a culture of impunity. The judiciary and law enforcement bodies are themselves subject to corruption and political interference. Journalists who attempt to report independently on corruption cases face censorship and criminal charges.

A devastating earthquake in February 2023 exposed high levels of corruption in Turkey, particularly in the construction industry and related permitting processes. In June 2024, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that Turkish authorities consistently failed to investigate alleged bribery by Turkish entities abroad.

Turkey’s political and legal environment has made democratic oversight of the government nearly impossible. Despite laws guaranteeing access to information, the government withholds information on the activities of state officials and institutions. Civil society leaders and journalists are routinely denied access to government officials, meetings, and events. Public officials are widely accused of publishing distorted data, including statistics on inflation and unemployment. The appointment of Hafize Gaye Erkan as central bank chief and the return of Mehmet Şimşek as finance minister following the 2023 elections helped to restore some investor confidence in the transparency of Turkey’s economic management and related data, though Erkan resigned in February 2024 and was replaced by the bank’s deputy governor.

Most Turkish media networks are owned by businesses that depend on public tenders or have close ties to President Erdoğan. Mainstream media reflect government positions and often carry identical headlines. Although independent outlets exist, they face tremendous political pressure and are routinely targeted for prosecution. Media outlets are frequently censored, fined, or shut down, and journalists are detained regularly. Business elites with close ties to Erdoğan have been accused of bribing journalists and orchestrating negative press against the opposition. Reporters have also faced physical attacks, notably when covering politics, corruption, or crime.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 journalists were in prison in Turkey as of December 2024. The independent news agency Bianet reported that at least 57 journalists were detained over the course of the year, and 36 were convicted and sentenced to prison or fines. Criminal charges that are commonly applied to journalists include spreading terrorist propaganda, belonging to a terrorist group, violating demonstration bans, and insulting the president or state institutions. A 2022 law introduced a prison sentence of up to three years for individuals deemed to promote false information on social media.

Members of Turkey’s state broadcast regulator, the High Council for Broadcasting (RTÜK), are appointed by the AKP-controlled parliament. The RTÜK continued to fine independent networks that critiqued the government during 2024. In July, the council revoked the license of Acik Radio, an independent radio station, after a guest discussed the Armenian genocide. Since 2019, the RTÜK has required international online video producers to obtain licenses in order to operate in Turkey, and in 2022 it blocked access to Voice of America and Deutsche Welle for refusing to comply with the regulation. Free Web Turkey reported in September 2024 that some 14,000 online news articles and 197,000 websites were blocked in 2023. The blocked content included news articles on state corruption, among other topics. Media that favor the political opposition also suffer from indirect censorship efforts like cyberattacks.

Since 2020, the government has forced major social media companies, including Facebook and YouTube, to maintain offices in the country and comply with government demands to take down content. Companies that refused to comply have received hefty fines and advertising bans.

Sunni Islam is the majority religion in Turkey. While the constitution defines a secular state and guarantees freedom of religion, there are limitations on the rights of both recognized and unrecognized religious minorities. The government recognizes only the Armenian Christian, Greek Orthodox, and Jewish minorities; it does not recognize their leadership structures as legal entities, leading to difficulties on matters such as property ownership. Other non-Muslim groups, such as Protestant Christians, struggle to establish and register places of worship.

Turkey’s Sunni mosques and schools are entitled to government funding through the state-controlled Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which covers the salaries of imams as well as the mosques’ utility costs. Alevi institutions and those of other religious communities are not provided with such support. In September 2024, Istanbul municipal authorities officially recognized Alevi places of worship, known as Cemevleri, granting them a status that was previously denied due to opposition from AKP representatives on the city council.

The national curriculum mandates compulsory religious education. Children of Christian and Jewish families are exempt if their religion is disclosed on their national identification cards. Unrecognized groups, including Alevis, cannot obtain exemptions from these classes.

Alevis and non-Muslims continue to be targeted with hate speech, property damage, and occasional violent assaults.

Since 2016, the government has dismissed thousands of academics and educators for their perceived sympathies with the political left, the PKK, or the movement of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, which was blamed for that year’s failed coup attempt. More than a thousand scholars have been investigated and hundreds prosecuted for declaring their support for peace between the government and the PKK. University students are routinely detained for holding peaceful demonstrations against government policies.

The government and university administrations regularly intervene to suppress dissent on campus and to prevent academics from researching sensitive topics, encouraging self-censorship among scholars. Erdoğan obtained the power to appoint rectors at public and private universities through a 2016 presidential decree and has used it to influence academic institutions’ affairs. In August 2024, Erdoğan appointed rectors to 13 universities. In June, however, the Constitutional Court had ruled the decree unconstitutional and gave the government a year to draft new legislation on such appointments.

While citizens continue to voice their opinions in private, many exercise caution about what they say publicly. Ordinary people have faced criminal prosecution for incitement or insulting the president, as have public figures.

The government heavily monitors and censors the Turkish internet, contributing to self-censorship. The vaguely written disinformation law that took effect in 2022 significantly expanded the scope of potentially criminal activities on social media and introduced a three-year maximum prison sentence.

Among other cases in 2024, popular YouTube personality Diamond Tema was investigated in June for allegedly insulting religious values in an online debate about Islam. Tema fled the country amid a harassment campaign. In July, an LGBT+ activist, İris Mozalar, was briefly arrested and accused of inciting hatred and hostility after expressing support for Syrian migrants on social media. In August, police arrested an Izmir resident after she openly criticized the government’s temporary Instagram ban that month in a street interview; she was arrested on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity among the public” and was released less than a month later. Also in August, at least 69 social media accounts belonging to Kurdish politicians and journalists were blocked by a Turkish court.

Authorities routinely ban gatherings organized by government critics, while progovernment rallies are allowed and enjoy police protection. Police frequently use force to break up peaceful protests. In recent years, security forces have employed tear gas, pepper spray, and other violent tactics to disperse May Day protests, commemorations of the 2013 Gezi Park protests, LGBT+ pride parades, Women’s Day celebrations, marches against gender-based violence, protests against price hikes and soaring inflation, vigils for victims of a 1980 military coup, and other gatherings.

Police detained hundreds of protesters during 2024 May Day demonstrations; authorities had banned the event in Istanbul’s Taksim Square despite a 2023 Constitutional Court ruling against such restrictions. In June, authorities in Istanbul shut down metro stations and roads ahead of planned LGBT+ pride rallies, and police arrested at least 15 protesters. While pride demonstrations have been banned since 2015, anti-LGBT+ rallies have largely been able to proceed.

Since 2022, authorities have cracked down on a variety of art and music festivals. More than 26 Kurdish music and cultural events were banned between 2019 and 2024.

The government frequently targets independent civil society groups. Since 2016, it has shut down more than 1,500 foundations and associations. Leaders of remaining nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) face harassment, arrests, and prosecutions. A 2020 law subjects NGOs to yearly audits and gives the Interior Ministry the power to appoint trustees to the boards of NGOs facing criminal investigation. In 2021, the government froze the assets of 770 NGOs based on spurious accusations of terrorism financing.

Turkey’s politicized judiciary has convicted several prominent human rights activists, including the former head of Amnesty International Turkey, on bogus terrorism charges in an apparent effort to intimidate civil society actors and stifle human rights advocacy. In 2022, an Istanbul court convicted prominent philanthropist Osman Kavala and other celebrated civil society leaders of conspiring to overthrow the government. Kavala was sentenced to life in prison, while seven other defendants received 18-year sentences. In 2023, an appeals court overturned three defendants’ sentences but upheld Kavala’s. The convictions, following a prosecution that was widely seen as baseless, conspiracist, and politically motivated, drew sharp criticism from international and domestic rights groups. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ordered Turkey to release Kavala.

Organizations that focus on the rights of LGBT+ people, women, and ethnic or religious minority groups are often targeted with civil or criminal litigation.

Union activity, including the right to strike, is limited by law and in practice. Less than 15 percent of the workforce in Turkey is unionized, and that figure does not include the massive informal labor market. Antiunion activities by employers are common, and legal protections are poorly enforced. A system of threshold requirements limits unions’ ability to secure collective-bargaining rights. Trade unions and professional organizations face government interference and retaliation for activities that are seen as hostile to the political leadership’s interests.

Judicial independence has been severely compromised, as thousands of judges and prosecutors have been replaced with government loyalists since 2016. Under the presidential system that took effect in 2018, members of Turkey’s Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), which oversees judicial appointments and disciplinary measures, are appointed by the parliament and the president rather than by members of the judiciary. As a result, prosecutors and judges often toe the government line. Judges who rule against the government have been removed and replaced, while those who convict Erdoğan’s critics have been promoted.

Although the Constitutional Court has shown some independence since 2019, it is not free from political influence and often delivers rulings in line with AKP interests. In November 2023, the Supreme Court of Appeals clashed with the Constitutional Court over the case of Can Atalay, a lawyer and activist who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2022 over his alleged involvement in the Gezi Park protests, then elected to the parliament while behind bars in 2023. After his request for release was denied twice by the Supreme Court, Atalay appealed to the Constitutional Court, which ordered his release in October 2023. In November, Erdoğan backed the Supreme Court’s decision. In January 2024, the Constitutional Court issued a second ruling on Atalay’s conviction, granting him financial compensation and suspending his sentence. Also that month, the Grand National Assembly voted to strip Atalay of his parliamentary status, but the Constitutional Court ruled that move invalid in August. Atalay remained in prison at the end of 2024 as the standoff continued, and several Constitutional Court judges were reportedly under criminal investigation.

Severe violations of due process persist in the judicial system. Defendants are often held in lengthy pretrial detention that can last for years. Prosecutors frequently wait months before unveiling charges and produce lengthy indictments with insufficient evidence. In many cases, lawyers defending people accused of terrorism face arrest themselves. Lower courts have defied rulings by higher courts that they are legally bound to implement.

Turkish authorities are regularly accused of torturing prisoners, especially Kurdish and LGBT+ people. Prosecutors do not consistently investigate allegations of torture or abuse in custody.

While the threat of terrorism has decreased significantly since 2018, attacks have continued to take place each year. In October 2024, two assailants killed five people and injured nearly two dozen others at the headquarters of a state-owned military aerospace company near Ankara. The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack. The government maintains an armed counterinsurgency campaign against the PKK, and civilians in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeast continue to suffer from the effects of the conflict.

Although Turkey’s laws guarantee equal treatment of all citizens, women and members of religious, ethnic, and sexual and gender minority groups suffer varying degrees of discrimination in practice. Women make up a growing part of the workforce, but gender bias and inequality remain pressing issues. Alevis and non-Muslims face systemic discrimination in schools and public-sector employment. The government’s conflict with the PKK is used to justify discriminatory measures against Kurdish citizens, including the prohibition of Kurdish festivals. Kurdish schools and cultural organizations, many of which had opened while peace talks were taking place, have been investigated or shut down since 2015. In September 2024, authorities raided a number of Kurdish organizations and cultural institutions. Authorities periodically make mass arrests in Kurdish-majority areas, accusing detainees of supporting the PKK. Some of those arrested in 2024 were reportedly targeted simply for singing Kurdish songs.

While same-sex relations are not legally prohibited, the law does not explicitly protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and LGBT+ people experience widespread discrimination, police harassment, and violence. LGBT+ people are banned from serving in the military. Top state officials frequently engage in homophobic hate speech. The government continues to censor LGBT+ content in the media, including on Turkish streaming platforms and foreign services like Netflix. In July 2024, authorities shut down an art exhibition on the history of transgender people in Turkey.

Turkey hosts more than four million refugees and migrants, most of them from Syria, according to the government. Most refugee children lack access to education, and most adults lack employment permits. Popular resentment and discriminatory political rhetoric against refugees has increased since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, and residency permits for refugees and migrants have become more difficult to obtain and renew. Reports also point to a growing number of deportations, some of which human rights groups have characterized as forced deportations.

Freedom of movement is limited in some regions and for groups that are treated with suspicion by the government. In southeastern Turkey, movement is restricted due to the conflict between the government and the PKK. Separately, more than 125,000 public-sector workers who were fired or suspended following the coup attempt in 2016 have since been unable to find employment due to an atmosphere of guilt by association, and they cannot travel abroad as their passports have been canceled.

Refugees continue to face legal and practical obstacles to free movement and change of employment within the country. The roughly 3.1 million registered Syrian refugees in Turkey are not allowed to live or work outside the provinces where they are registered. Relocating or traveling between provinces requires permission from the local authorities.

Private property rights are legally enshrined, but for the last decade, critics or opponents of the government have been subjected to intrusive tax and regulatory inspections. Since 2016, the assets of hundreds of companies, NGOs, and media outlets that were deemed to be associated with terrorist groups have been confiscated, severely harming public confidence in the rule of law and basic protections for free enterprise.

Freedoms pertaining to personal status issues such as marriage, divorce, and child-rearing are inconsistently upheld. While divorce is legal, Erdoğan and the AKP have campaigned to dissuade women from seeking divorce and encourage them to bear at least three children. Child marriages, although illegal, often take place, mainly performed through unofficial religious ceremonies or by fraudulently obtaining marriage licenses using false identification. Contraception remains legal but is increasingly difficult to access.

Turkey’s rates of femicide and gender-based violence—which often involve domestic violence and attacks by current or former intimate partners—are among the world’s highest, and women’s rights activists have described a culture of impunity enabled by the government and the judiciary. According to local women’s rights organizations that track femicides, at least 447 women were killed in 2024. Turkey’s 2021 withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, an international treaty to prevent gender-based violence, removed key legal protections for women facing domestic abuse. Police are reluctant to intervene in domestic disputes, and few shelters for victims exist.

The weakness of labor unions and the government’s increasing willingness to act against organized labor have undermined equality of opportunity, protection from economic exploitation, and workplace safety. Workplace accidents have become frequent in recent years, and laborers have little recourse if injured. According to Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG), at least 1,897 people died in work-related incidents during 2024, down slightly from 1,932 in 2023. Migrant and refugee workers and those employed in Turkey’s large informal sector, which makes up about a third of the overall economy, are especially vulnerable to economic exploitation.