Contesting the ‘Truth’ of Turkey’s Human Rights Situation: State-Association Interactions in and outside the Southeast

The first decade of the 21st century saw Turkish state actors – under pressure from the European Union – initiate a kind of institutionalization of human rights. Initially, a window of opportunity for cooperation seemed to emerge between these actors and the country’s human rights associations, which state officials had for many years viewed as a threat and undermining state policies. This paper examines the institutionalization process and relations between human rights associations and Turkish officials. It shows that despite early indications of a more cooperative relationship, the process has produced a dual system comprised of mutually antagonistic actors: new state-centric institutional bodies on the one hand, and the established human rights associations on the other. Instead of cooperation, the newly developing structures appear to be challenging the authority of Turkey’s human rights associations over the ‘truth’ concerning respect for human rights in Turkey, especially regarding the Kurdish question. The institutionalization of human rights has been achieved in such a way as to lend state institutions the image of cooperation with a wide range of civil society actors, while in reality it is exclusive of those associations deemed a threat to the state’s reproduction of itself and the self-image it wants to portray. The paper demonstrates this by examining: (1) the ways in which the institutionalization process has developed; (2) the nature and workings of the new government-led human rights body; and (3) how this relates to shifts in patterns of relations between the human rights associations and EU institutions