(with Emma Sinclair-Webb) Turkey’s political atmosphere shapes rights violations

Host: Cansu Çamlıbel | Guest: Emma Sinclair-Webb

In this twelfth episode, host Cansu Çamlıbel and her guest Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), discussed Turkey’s free expression violations as part of wider human rights problems and the polarized political atmosphere that shapes the rights violations.

According to Sinclair-Webb, Turkey already has so much on its plate in terms of human rights problems. The coronavirus pandemic only added to that and shows how the Turkish government instrumentalized a public health crisis to violate many rights.

From the parole law in March to the social media regulation in October, Sinclair-Webb stressed that the government has used its parliamentary majority to rush through highly problematic laws that have only broadened the human rights problems in the country. 

Topics covered in the podcast include:

• The link between political rhetoric and human rights violations
• Lack of access to official data on human rights violations
• Social media law and other problematic laws that deepen Turkey’s free expression problems
• Rights violations left uninvestigated in southeastern Turkey
• Problems journalists reporting on the rights violations face

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