“Hate Crimes in Turkey and Racist Attacks: A Special Report” has just been released by the Human Rights Association (İHD). The association records and reports hate crimes and racist attacks in Turkey. It also monitors gender-based crimes, rape, and sexual violence.

The report stated that there were 280 racist attacks in 2019

The report also noted that there is an absence of comprehensive legal regulations relating to hate crimes and this enables many crimes to persist without being legally confronted. The Turkish state interprets racism, ethnicity, and gender identity/sexual orientation based discrimination and hate incidents in a very narrow way which means that many such hate crimes are not recognised as such.

The İHD report documented attacks on Kurdish militants’ graves and stated that these attacks were clearly in violation of Article 153 of the TCK. Forty-seven cemeteries have been attacked in this manner in the past five years.

The İHD also asserted that Kurdish people have been exposed to numerous hate crimes due to speaking Kurdish or listening to Kurdish music.

The report also noted that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) phobic hate attacks occurred in public spaces in Turkey.

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